Point of Contact
by WriteShop
Summary: What if Shinji wasn't completely isolated at the beginning? What if he had a cheerful, supportive friend. Well, ok, she's probably imaginary, but it's still more friends than Shinji ever had before. This small contact 'butterflies' everything. Very slight crossover with Muv-Luv:TE
1. Chapter 1

Hello a quick request before I start the story – I am tryng out a new avatar: Is it any good? Or does it look meh?

chapter 1

Shinji leaned back on the bench outside the train station. He had tried calling the phone number that his dad had provided, but he hadn't gotten through. So he leaned back to wait for this Misato person to come pick him up. It wasn't like he was in a rush to get anywhere. To all appearances, an average bored teenager. But Shinji was not your typical teen – he had an imaginary friend - a teenage girl who piloted a giant mecha, fighting aliens. They have been communicating for about 6 months now.

 _'Inia?'_ The one frustrating thing was that he couldn't initiate the conversation – they only talked when she was off duty. According to Ina, Shinji was actually *her* imaginary friend. Which was probably true. There was no way that Shinji could have come up with somebody like Inia Sestina – somebody so unfailingly cheerful and friendly, despite all the hardships she had described, such as being forced to fight in the front lines against an alien invader bent on destroying all humanity. Compared to that (well, compared to anything, really), his own life was quite unremarkable, to the point of boredom.

Take now, for instance: he had spent the past ten years living with his teacher, seeing his father once or twice a year. Now, all of a sudden his father asks him to come to Tokyo-3, but when he got off of the train, there is nobody here. He had been expecting some sort of reunion, or maybe family drama (Inia had told him to give his dad an earful, but he wasn't certain that he was ready to do that). But then, nothing. The city was having some sort of drill, and there was nobody here to pick him up from the station.

 _'Shinji, I can't talk, but we just got word that we're being transferred from Kamchatka to a multi-national base over in Alaska. We're going to meet Americans! And eat hamburgers! Have you ever had a hamburger?'_ Inia's voice filled his head. It took some getting used to, but now it was as natural as a regular conversation. And even better, he never had to worry about actually meeting her, so there was never any awkwardness.

' _Yeah. I cook, remember? Just be aware that if they are advertised as 'all meat', that doesn't make them the best. Good burgers have some bread mixed in to retain the fat. Wait a minute. Something is going on.'_

 _'What happening?'_

 _'Something just blew up! Oh, shit!_ ' Shinji had gotten up onto a rubbish bin to get a better view, ' _there's a giant robot-thing fighting a bunch of VTOLs!'_

 _'What?'_ Ina called out faintly. In his excitement, Shinji was slipping out of the calm, almost meditative state that he had to be in to receive Inia's communications.

"Oh, crap!" Shinji dived for cover as a VTOL spun by overhead, out of control, before clipping a building and dropping two streets over.

There was the screech of tires and a blue Renault slammed to the curb inches from where Shinji was cowering, "Hey, you Shinji Ikari?" the purple haired driver called out as she pushed the passenger side door open.

At Shinji's tentative affirmative, she reached out and grabbed his arm, "Come on, then! This is a war zone!"

Shinji had just righted himself in the car's bucket seat when she slammed the gas peddle, and the car shot like rocket down the (thankfully) empty street, careening slightly.

"Shinji, you ok?" Came Inia's voice, faintly.

" Yeiie Yeii Yi!" Gibbered the teen in question.

"Oh, you think this is fast, wait until I get you into a Trainer. Oh, I'm Misato Katsuragi, incidentally. I sent you the directions and the selfie."

Shinji vaguely remembered that selfie, as if it was in another life - one where he wasn't about to die. "Uhm, was that an appropriate thing to send?"

Misato just laughed, as she pulled hard on the wheel to send the hardy little car into a right skid. "Oh, you're a teenager, I bet you've seen racier things than that." She stomped on the accelerator again as soon as the car was more or less lined up with the cross street.

 _'I am not going to whine. Ina has to do this sort of thing everyday._ ' It wasn't clear what Shinji was clenching tighter – His teeth, his hands to the seat under him, or his butt cheeks.

"Oh, crap! Get down" Misato threw herself over the teen just as he was becoming used to the 'high rate of speed' and the disregard for laws (both of traffic and physics) that they were traveling under.

BOOM!

The shock wave flipped their car over, dislodging one of Shinji's hands from the car seat.

"Miss Misato! Are you ok?" He called as he struggled to squirm out of the car through the window.

"Yeah, I thinks so. I just took a little knock to the head. Here, help me flip the car over." As they righted the car, and 'borrowed' a battery from the hardware store up the street to jump start it, Misato seemed a little wobbly,

"Um, Miss Misato, do you want me to drive the rest of the way?" Shinji asked.

Misato looked skeptically at the 15 year old. "Do you even have a license?"

"No, but I am worried about you driving a car in your state" _'and me being a passenger in the said car.'_

"Nah, I'm fine. Or I will be once I sit down. I've had worse" She tactfully omitted that it was after a 3 day bender back in college. "Let's go – I have to get you back to HQ – you're dads dying to see you!" Actually, Misato suspected that Gendo had the same emotional range as the sardines that she served Penpen for dinner, but it was (distantly) possible that his flat glare was actually an expression of excitement.

/\ PoC /\

"The docking cages are somewhere this way" Misato turned left. They were in the geofront, and had been for some time now. It was deep enough underground that they no longer heard the explosions as the VTOLs tried to slow the third Angel. Shinji glanced at the marking of the cross-corridor as he tried to make heads or tails of the map that Misato had given him. It didn't have any detail – the corridor they were in didn't even appear to be on the map (which was why Misato was relying on dead reckoning).

Shinji had just turned to follow the purple haired woman when an elevator door slid open behind him. "Misato! What are you doing here – you're supposed to be down in the Cages!" A blond woman in a wet-suit with a lab coat draped over it accosted them.

"They aren't over this way?"

"You're not even on the correct level!" she sighed in exasperation, making it seem that the entire world was somehow disappointing her. "Here, follow me!" As she motioned the pair into the elevator, she turned to Shinji, "I'm Ritsuko, incidentally. I am the chief scientist here. I work closely with your father."

As they rode down, Shinji tried to organize his thoughts. Ever since he had gotten the summons to appear before his father, he had debated how he should react. Ina had had a lot to say about it: As an orphan, she was a big proponent of trying to reach out and reconcile (after giving his father an earful). She just didn't understand how big of a jerk his dad was.

He vaguely heard a loudspeaker blaring something in the background about a read alert and battle stations.

"Do you know why you're here?" Ritsuko asked. At Shinji negative expression, she expostulated as they walked out of the elevator through a utility tunnel into the Cages. "It is to pilot that - the Evangelion Unit 01!"

The lights flickered from a particularly powerful explosion just as they entered the docking cages, _'It's a giant robot!'_ Shinji's attention was drawn to the purple behemoth strapped into a support frame that was immersed halfway in a reddish goo. "Is this what my father has been working on all this time?"

"Yes." Shinji looked up to catwalk that he had not even noticed earlier. Standing there was Gendo, a pair of his flunkies in the background. "It's been a long time."

"Yes." Shinji looked around. This wasn't at all like he had planned out with Inia. He had expected an opportunity to talk to his dad on person, one on one. Not like this, with his father looking down on him from twenty feet up, like some monarch from ancient times. "Um, yeah. I don't know if this is the right time, but uh, we should talk about..."

"Get in the robot, Shinji."

"Wha?"

"You're here to pilot the Evangelion."

"You will be protecting all of the human race," Misato added.

Shinji looked over at the giant machine. _'It's the same as what Inia has to do.'_

"We have no other choice," Ritsuko added. It wasn't clear if she intended it as an apology to Shinji or a statement of frustration.

"Is this the only reason you called me here?" Shinji cried out.

"Yes."

Shinji glared up at his father, who stood looking down impassively, the the light glaring off of his tinted glasses.

Gendo was just turning to call out a command to his flunky when Shinji voice rang out out "I'll do it." _'I'm not going to be a wimp. If Inia has to do this, I can too.'_

Gendo shut his jaw with an audible snap. He eyed his son in surprise, _'that did not fit the profile.'_

/\ PoC /\

Shinji sat in the uncomfortably hard pilot seat, in the too-tight plug suite as his control module FILLED WITH LIQUID. "Misato! Anybody! There is a leak! The control module is flooding!"

"Don't panic, Shinji," Ritsuko's voice came over the com, "That's super-oxygenated LCL. It will feel a little strange, but you can actually get oxygen from it."

"That means you can breath it!" Interrupted Misato.

"Yes, you can breath it," continued Ritsuko, "It will help you sync with the Evangelion, and it will cushion impact better than air, should you get hit." The way she was rhapsodically describing it, you would think it was some miracle fluid. But all Shinji could think of was that if anything went wrong, he was going to drown.

"See that wasn't so bad," Misato coached through the com system as Shinji's head disappeared under the liquid. She had apparently displaced Ritsuko. "Now you will sortie through the number 3 elevator. Once you're out, you will see a container with a pallet rifle on your right. That will be your weapon."

"How do I move in this thing?"

"Just concentrate on moving like you would your own body."

"O-ok" Shinji clenched his teeth as the cage pulled his Evangelion into elevator 3 and he began to shoot up towards the surface. _'Don't panic. Don't panic. Don't panic.'_

Meanwhile, in the control room, Misato was peering over Ritsuko's shoulder as the blond ran the main monitor, having displaced Makoto from his usual post, "How does he look?"

"Shinji's sync score is holding at almost 60%. It dropped a little, probably from tension."

"Isn't that really high for a first attempt?

"Mm." Ritsuko nodded absently as she adjusted a few things, bringing Shinji's EKG up on the screen. "His mind is unusually receptive." The EKG showed a very fast heart beat, and they could hear Shinji panting over the mike.

"Yaaa!"

BADDA BADDA BADDA

The sound of Shinji yelling was almost muffled by the sound of the Pallet rifle on full auto spraying.

"Shinji! Wait until the Angel comes closer – you're not in range yet." Ritsuko commented, "You have to let it come close enough for your AT fields to cancel out."

"Yaaaaaa!"

BADDA BADDA BADDA

"Shinji, switch the Pallet rifle to burst mode," Misato interrupted.

BADDA BADDA click click click

"Yeah?"

Misato sighed, "there is a second Pallet rifle in the weapons elevator 100 meters to your left. And fire it in burst mode so you don't use up all your ammo."

/\ PoC /\

Shinji directed his Eva to race towards where Misato told him the closest weapon locker was: It was even indicated by a red dot on his GPS screen. It was kind of amazing, really - he felt like he was running in his own body, not in a giant robot. This was nothing like what he expected.

But just as he was getting comfortable, he noticed how close the Angel was. Just as he was reaching for the new Pallet rifle he came face to face with the enemy. As he flinched back in surprise, the Angel lashed out with its spear-like arm, driving the tip into the Evangelion's shoulder.

"Aaarg!" Shinji learned the draw back of having a high sync score. He tried to get the Angel away, pushing on its head, but the monster grabbed his shoulder with one pincer-like hand and hammered away like a pile driver at the Evangelion with a bone spur mounted on the other.

/\ PoC /\

When he next awoke, Shinji was surprised to see a hospital ceiling. ' _I'm alive'_. And from the clock on the opposite wall, it was early morning, so at least one night had passed.

He took a moment to check to see if he was all there – the attacks from the angel had felt like they were tearing chunks out of his body. _'And Inia has to deal with getting injured like this all the time. I hadn't appreciated...'_

He slipped into his meditate state, laying quietly, breathing in and out and not thinking about anything. Finally, he tried reaching out _'Inia? Are you there_ _?'_

 _'Yes! Are you ok? Last I heard, there were explosions around you! What happened?'_ the excitable girl broadcast.

 _'I, uh, got asked to pilot a giant robot – TSF, I guess – to fight aliens.'_ There was a pause as Inia processed this, and then Shinji added _'It hurt.'_

' _Oh.'_ Inia replied, again not saying anything.

 _'Inia? Are you ok? I'm fine – It hurt a lot at the time, but I'm not injured or anything. I don't know exactly what happened at the end – I blacked out, but hopefully the monster is dead.'_ Shinji started babbling. Inia was usually so cheerful and upbeat. Her vivaciousness is what helped him muster the energy to keep going. To have her fall silent and withdraw like that.. was very scary. He wasn't certain he could survive without her presence.

 _'I'm fine. It's just... I thought there was at least one place out there in the universe that didn't have BETA_.' Inia paused, ' _talking to you let me escape reality, for a little while.'_

 _'I don't think what I fought was a BETA – it was much bigger than what you described, and there was only one of them.'_ Shinji described his battle, or as much of it as he could remember.

 _'And you felt everything that happened to your TSF, this Evangelion?'_ At Shinji affirmative, Inia mused, _'It must be mentally connected to you, and those A10 connectors and the fluid must be there to increase your connection. Huh. I bet they chose you because you're a latent telepath.'_

 _'Like you?'_

 _'I'm more than latent. I was designed... I mean raised, to have my telepathy be functional. That's what lets me talk to you_.' Shinji let Inia's slip go without commenting. He knew she had had a pretty awful childhood, worse than his. He wasn't certain about the details, but he wasn't going to push for them unless she was ready to talk about it. Besides, he wasn't certain if he was ready to reciprocate and talk about how he felt about his father abandoning him. He didn't want to sound like a whiny loser. Just knowing that she had survived to be a cheerful teenager was enough to give him hope.

As long as she was real. He didn't know what he would do if she turned out to be imaginary.

"Hello, Shinji!" It took Shinji a moment to realize that the cheerful voice calling out to him wasn't all in his head now. He turned to look – standing in the doorway, exuding good cheer, was Misato.

"Are you ready to get up? We need to find out where your assigned quarters are. Have you had breakfast yet?" Misato had seen Shinji through the open doorway as she had approached, just sitting there, either moping or in shock. He needed somebody to connect with him, to draw him out.

"Uhm Misato.. what happened? The last thing I remember is blacking out..."

Misato turned it down a notch, "just before you blacked out you manged to get in a kill shot in. You did good." Her smile was a little artificial looking now, but Shinji lacked the people skills to tell the difference. "Now, how about you get up, and I'll take you to breakfast, and then we can go see about your housing." She waited patiently for Shinji to get out of bed.

"Um, can you, you know, let me get dressed?" He gestured to the standard issue hospital onesy.

"Oh, right: teenager. I'll be right outside!" She closed the door behind her, only to re-open it immediately, "Don't take too long!"

 _'Did you catch any of that?'_ Shinji asked.

 _'No – remember, I can only 'hear' what you say, not what you hear, and then only when you're calm._ '

" _Oh, right. The woman who picked me up from the train station want to get me set up for housing and stuff. I think she works for my father."_

 _'Is she a jerk too?'_ Inia asked. Shinji had made no mention of the photo that Misato had inserted with the summons, so she had no indication of the woman's personality.

 _'No, she's like an older version of you.'_

 _'How much older?'_ Came the immediate response.

' _I don't know. Maybe 30? I got to go.'_ Shinji couldn't concentrate on maintaining his link to Inia and doing regular things, like pulling on his socks.

/\ PoC /\

"What do you mean, he'll be living by himself in block 24-B?" Misato demanded of the clerk in the housing administration office. "That's out in the new construction area. It's a dump. That's no place for a teenager to living. Especially on their own."

"I'm sorry, Ma'am, but that is what the NRJP-11-b form calls for." The clerk shrugged noncommittally. Once the form was filled out and signed, it was gospel. Nobody except god himself could change it.

"Um, Misato, it's oke..." began Shinji.

"Well, change it. Put him in for block 11-C, that's the section I'm in, and I know that there are still empty apartments there."

"An empty apartment would have to be found, and then it would have to be allocated to operations, and then designated as a high security residence." The clerk replied.

"So? Go ahead and do that."

"I can't do that. You would have to get form ARJP-10-c from operations, then have it signed by Shinji's superior officer, and then have it signed by the head of operations." The clerk typed away for a minute, being helpful, "I'm not certain who Pilot Ikari's commanding officer is – he's not set up correctly in the command structure. I guess you would have to go up to Commander Ikari."

"In that case, forget the form. Shinji will be staying with me. My apartment is already set up as a high security residence, and I got a spare room."

As the argument went on around him, Shinji zoned out. He had his SDAT player in his ears so that people wouldn't give him funny looks, but it wasn't turned on.

 _'Do you think that I should argue?'_ He asked Inia.

 _'No, If this Misato person wants to have you room with her, it's probably for the best. Living with someone else is always better than living by yourself.'_

 _'I would have you.'_

There was a pause before Inia continued, ' _Yeah, but we can only talk when we make an effort. Its nice to have somebody around, banging about, making noise and just being there.'_

Misato glanced at the Third child as he stood there, completely oblivious, ' _That kid is as withdrawn as the psych report said. He needs to have people around him or he will become a basket case.'_

She finished filling out the forms that the clerk shoved at her and grabbed Shinji's arm, "Come on, Shinji, Let's go see your new home!" Misato overdid the 'cheerful' a little, grabbing Shinji's arm in such a way that he blushed all they way to to the tips of his ears. Not that it was difficult to achieve - Shinji still wasn't used to human physical contact.

/\ PoC /\

' _She's an utter slob!_ ' Shinji was lying in bed, exhausted, ' _I think she actually wanted a roommate because she needs somebody to clean up after her.'_

 _'She can't be that bad.'_

 _'Want to bet? I had to go down to the basement and get a snow shovel in order to clear a path to my room. You know what I was doing the last four hours ? Putting empty beer cans into trash bags.'_

' _Um.. yeah,'_ Slovenliness was really outside of Inia's experience, as her entire life had been in a tightly regimented environment - first at the research facility, and then in the military. _'Have you remembered how you ended up defeating that alien Angel?'_

 _'Not really, but Misato claims that I got a couple of good shots in before getting banged upside the head, and that I lost a couple of minutes of memory.'_

 _'Yeah, that happens.'_

 _'Except my last memory was of losing, badly, as the angel pounded me into the pavement.'_ Shinji sighed, ' _but enough of the chaos that is my life. How is the move to Alaska?'_

 _'It's been great! We haven't had leave yet, so I haven't been able to get any real burgers, but we met the other test pilots. They are really nice, especially this American, Yuuya Bridges. I think Cryska likes him.'_

"Huh," Shinji snorted, not certain how to respond.

 _'He also just transferred up to Alaska. The weird thing is he's working with the Japanese test flight, so he went with us as we went on a tour of the facilities. At least the parts that all the test flights share. He was really polite.'_

Shinji paused, before replying _'Are you certain it's Cryska who's the one who likes him?'_

 _'Well, obviously.'_

Before Shinji could reply, Misato jerked open his door, "Hey, Shinji, I got you signed up for school, so you're all set for next week!" She looked expectantly at the teen who was lying on his bed , headphones on his ears, and for all the world oblivious to the world.

"Um, ok?"

"Great! So do you need any school supplies? NERV will provide all the school books and such, but do you want colorful binders or notepads? The store down the street has some rally cute ones!"

"... No, I'm good."

Misato nodded and looked at the socially withdrawn teen, "Ok, that just leaves figuring out the chores. Since we're roommates, we should split up the cooking and cleaning. We'll rock-paper-scissors for them?"

"Ok?"

Shortly, Shinji found himself on the hook for all the cleaning, with him and Misato alternating turns doing the cooking. He wasn't certain how that had happened, unless Misato had cheated, but he was actually fine with that, as he knew he was going to end up doing all the cleaning anyway. There was no way he way he could deal with living in the sort of disaster that Misato deemed 'acceptable'.

As Shinji headed back to his room, Misato interrupted ,"dinner is going to be ready in 10 minuted. Why don't you stay here so you can cheer me up?"

Shinji raised an eyebrow as Misato bounded about the kitchen preparing … something "Me, cheer _you_ up?"

"Right... You kind of a quiet kid. But that's ok! It's the quiet ones that have great depths. Wait until you have a girlfriend. It'll all work out for the best!" She dabbed some hot sauce onto instant Raman and stuck in the microwave, her mouth apparently on autopilot as she worked. "So, tell me what you planned to do for the next two days until your school starts."

"Um... Nothing?"

"Great, great! So you can come down to NERV and start on some pilot training!" Misato slammed a pair of steaming bowels in front of each of them, one containing a hot sauce spiced chicken Raman, and the other containing some sort of smoked fish floating in … beer? "Dinner is served!"

"Misato, I'm too young to drink," Shinji pointed to his fish bowl.

"Oh, oops – that's for Penpen." She swapped bowls, putting Shinji's on the floor and replacing it with one that had plain sardines.

As Shinji took a spoonful of Raman, it was like somebody had jammed a hot poker right through his mouth and out the other side of his head, ' _I remember!'_ His memory of the battle returned, starting with the 3rd Angel pistoning a bony spur through the Evangelion's head

 _As the bony spur smashed through the armor on the Eva's head, Shinji's eyes swam from pain. After the third blow, the pain decreased as he became a distant observer in his own body, watching what happened through a straw. He couldn't move his arms or legs, not that he really tried. Everything was starting to fade to black._

 _He vaguely saw the Evangelion's hand come up on its own and grab the red orb hanging from the Angel's lower torso and SQUEEZE it until, in a panic, the Angel tried to pull free, but it was too late – the orb shattered in Evangelion 01's grasp._

/\ PoC /\

 _'Now aim and squeeze the trigger gently,'_ Shinji was at NERV, trying out the virtual shooting range. He was strapped into his Entry Plug as he practiced against a recreation of the 3rd angel.

 _'One burst, then reposition.'_ Inia's voice sounded in his mind. ' _Nice and calm. You know, the connection when you are in the entry plug is really good!'_ She was correct – Shinji could hear her voice much more clearly, to the point that he was having a hard time differentiating it from what was coming in over the com.

 _'I really appreciate you taking the time to coach me like this. I imagine it's pretty boring for you,'_ Shinji commented in a break between scenarios.

 _'Yeah, but it would really stink if my best friend died because he didn't know what he was doing,'_ came the cheerful reply.

Shinji froze ' _wait – best.._ ' just as another scenario stated.

"Shinji, don't zone out." Ritsuko interrupted, "you've been doing great, but that doesn't mean you can slack off. This time, I'm changing it up and giving the Angel ranged weapons."

Shinji's adrenaline spiked as he realized the angel was lining up something on him, and he was out in the open.

"Yeaah!" He dived behind a building.

 _'Stay calm,'_ reminded Inia.

Shinji rolled from behind the building. ' _It has some sort of cannon! I got to get it first!'_

BADDA BADDA BADDA

.

.

.

The scenario ended with the Angel pile driving the spike through the Eva's head again.

And this was Shinji's life until school began: training under Inia's (and Ritsuko's) tutelage, eating the toxic sludge that Misato claimed was food, and picking up skimpy pieces of clothing that he really, really didn't want to be thinking about from the floor of the apartment and flinging them quickly into Misato's room.

Going back to school was a relief.

/\ PoC /\

 _'So we had a joint test with Argos flight. Remember I thought that they were a Japanese test pilot group, but it turns out just the commander is Japanese but the rest are from all over. The only reason we aren't officially part of it is because of politics. It was a lot of fun! The test, I mean, we had to play catch with the prototype through the training course. '_ Inia was bubbling away as Shinji sat in class, head resting on his hands as he listened to the teacher drone on. He had been here for less than a day, but he could tell that his history teacher was a colossal bore. The only thing that was piquing his interest was the blue haired girl sitting by the window. He was certain he had seen her at NERV – she was probably another pilot., _'But now we have a meeting. Meh. At least Yuuya will be there. So what are you doing right now?'_

 _'looking at Rei.'_ As soon as the words formed in his head, Shinji snapped out of his almost trance. _'I mean, I think she's also a pilot, but I am not certain, because I can't ask because we're stuck in history class.'_

 _'It's ok,'_ Inia reassured him. _'Go ahead and talk to her – you should get to know girls your own age, instead of just 30ish year old women.'_ The words sounded stiff, almost rehearsed.

 _'I can't do that,_ ' Shinji's palms began to sweat as he clutched at his desk in a panic. _'I mean..'_ At that point, a message popped up on his IM app.

 **Kensuke: are you the pilot of the giant robot.**

 _'Ina – Somebody just asked if I'm the pilot of the Eva. Should I tell them?'_

 _'Of course not. Didn't you tell me that it was top secret?'_

 _'Oh, yeah, sort of. But everybody who lives in Tokyo-3 saw it. And they're my age._ ' He obviously meant the people pestering him over the chat. Fortunately, Inia had become accustomed to his stream of conscious babbling when nervous.

 _'Yet your a pilot, at your age. Who's to say that one of them isn't a spy.'_

 _'I guess,'_ sulked Shinji. He REALLY didn't like disappointing people. Because then they might not like him.

 _'Hey, I got to go – Yuuya finally walked in, so the meeting is about to start.'_ Inia faded out, leaving Shinji to suffer the teacher's incessant monologue on his own. His IM pinged again.

K **ensuke: Hey, new kid. You want to hit the arcade after class?**

Shinji gave one last glance at Rei - she was still staring out the window – before turning back to his laptop. " **Sure** " Hanging out with one of the guys was a LOT safer than talking to the silent girl. And if he wasn't mistaken, Kensuke was the geek sitting two rows behind him, at the back of the room. He probably didn't have any social skills either.

/\ PoC /\

It was a relief when the school bell rang. The air conditioning in the school was turned off – it was a miracle that nobody fell asleep during class. Though if they had, the teacher would have never noticed.

"So, where do you want to go?" Shinji asked the eyeglass wearing Otaku. Apparently the jock sitting on the desk next to him was also going – the three of them were the last ones left, as the other students had poured out of the classroom as soon as the final bell had rung.

"There's a new shooting game down at the mall. I Don't know what it's called – I just caught a glimpse of it on my way to school today, but it looks awesome!"

"You and guns." The jock rolled his eyes as he jumped off of the desk.

"What? They have Street Fighter too. And a bunch of other games" This last was directed at Shinji, who nodded mutely.

The trio had just turned to go when Rei walked in. "We have to go" she pronounced.

"What?" before Shinji could say anything, his phone buzzed as a message came in.

 **Report to NERV -Misato**

He looked up to see Rei walking off. As he ran after her, the two other boys glanced at each other.

"Dude. They're totally dating!" Kensuke volunteered.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Dude. He's totally the pilot" Kensuke and Toji were sitting in the bunker under their school as they waited out the Angel attack. Not that there had been much information provided – they had just been instructed to report to the shelter immediately – but Kensuke had managed to get a live feed of the Angel on his phone for a couple of minutes before the doors were shut (and the bunker walls cut off the transmission).

"I should'a punched him in the face for what he did to my sister." Toji fumed.

Kensuke didn't dare raise the issue of collateral damage being unavoidable, and the fact that his sister was lucky to only be sightly injured. Toji was his friend, but he was a jock. He wouldn't get it. Not when it was his own sister that got injured. And it was nice being friends with a jock – he could keep the other jocks from hassling him.

"Let's sneak out and watch the battle?" As Toji hesitated, Kensuke added, "And I can totally sell the video. And I'll give you a cut."

"Yeah?" Toji turned to Hikari, who was helping manage all the students who were locked into the room, "Hey class rep: I got to go take a whiz. I'll be back in five." He turned and headed out the door, followed by Kensuke. With everybody inside the shelter, nobody was around to see them walk past the bathroom and head up the stairs.

"Ok, I think these doors use the same lock code as the rest of the doors in the school – the RFID signature I copied from Mr. Miyami should pop it right open" Kensuke held his phone up to the RFID panel near the door, "Aaand" **click** "Presto chango! We're out!" He lead the way, taking the stairs two at a time.

/\ PoC /\

"Shinji, you need to neutralize the Angel's AT field!" Misato interrupted Shinji as he darted to another building and fired another burst. "You're not actually damaging it."

"What?" Shinji finally took a close look at his target: It looked the same as when the battle had started. It was even floating in the same spot.

While Shinji stood and gaped, the Angel finally darted forward - gliding like fleshy paper airplane - right at Eva 01.

Shinji raised his pallet rifle in a panic, but the Angel's whip-like tentacle cut right through it. As Shinji flinched backwards, the second whip wrapped around his arm and sent him pinwheeling across the landscape.

When the Evangelion landed, the Angel again skimmed towards it, lashing at its face with the tentacles as the prone Unit 01 sprawled on the hillside. When Eva 01 raised its arm to protect its face, the tentacles wrapped around it, squeezing and cutting into it.

/\ PoC /\

"Oh, dude, that's got to hurt!" Kensuke crowed from his perch on the hill behind their school.

Toji nodded his agreement, "Man is getting his ass handed to him."

The two teens ducked as the giant slammed into the neighboring hillside. "I think we should go back inside!" quailed Kensuke. Combat didn't look so cool from close up as it did on the TV screen. You could DIE out here! They just got up to run for the school entrance when the ground shook as the Angel slammed the Eva into the ground again, knocking them down.

They watched as the Evangelion grabbed hold of the tentacles that were cutting into its left arm and yanked the Angel up close, before jabbing at its midsection with a knife. As the angel struggled, flailing at the Evangelion with the ends of its tentacles, Unit 01 kept pressing in with the knife, even as it flinched in pain from the gashes left by the lashes.

The two teens scampered for cover on all fours at the terrifying noise. Pieces of debris scattered in all directions. They had just gotten inside the school entrance when something in the Angel finally gave out, and the whole thing exploded, pushing Evangelion 01 deeper into the hillside.

/\ PoC /\

"You disobeyed an order to retreat!" Misato was debriefing Shinji. He had changed out of his plug suit, but he still looked like a drowned rat, staring down at his feet like this was a test, and the answers were written on his toes.

"I though... that it would be better to fight it out." He replied quietly.

Misato stared at the dispirited teen and sighed, "Fine. You did ok. Just next time, follow orders, ok? Now go get some rest." He had won in the end, and she couldn't really blame him for lacking military discipline – he wasn't a soldier.

Shinji nodded and shuffled out.

He soon found himself on a train on the loop line that circumvented Tokyo-3, his SDAT plugged into his ears.

 _'I'm not certain I can do it. I.. it's not that I was scared at the time. But afterwards.. it was awful!'_ He reported.

 _'Yeah, combat is like that. Sometimes, you get out of the cockpit and you are amazed that you are still alive.'_ Inia commiserated, ' _Don't tell anybody. I mean anybody: I had one really bad battle where afterwards I couldn't stop shaking. It was so bad, I couldn't get out of the cockpit until Cryska lifted me out. She told everybody that I had injured my hip during one of our high G turns, and so I couldn't walk on my own.'_

' _I..'_ Shinji had been about to say that he didn't have anybody like that, but that sounded pathetically needy even to his own ears.

' _You should get somebody like that,'_ Inia continued, _'some friends that will support you no matter what.'_

 _'The only other pilot is a really aloof girl. I don't think it will work.'_

 _'It doesn't have to be Rei. Just regular friends.'_

 _'Oh, and how many regular friends do you have,'_ Shinji shot back angrily, ' _you're always telling me that it's you and your twin against the world.' T_ echnically, Cryska wasn't even Inia's sister, but they had been raised together, and from her description, they were identical in appearance.

 _'That's not... '_ Inia paused, _'Look, I have a meeting. We'll talk later. You need to talk to friends. I.. I'm worried about you.'_

Shinji finally got off the loop line to buy some food. Several hours had passed, with Shinji making his never ending circuit of Tokyo-3. It was getting dark now, and Inia still hasn't re-contacted him. After eating the whatever-it-was that he had purchased at the food stand, he found shelter at a movie theater. Some docu-drama was playing, but nobody was paying any attention. The only other people in the theater were a pair of teenagers making out (and possibly more) on the far left, and a drunk sleeping in the front row.

Perfect.

 _'Shinji? Sorry for not contacting you sooner. We had a training accident.'_

 _'Are you ok?'_ Shinji found himself asking. He was surprised at the tone of concern in his 'voice'.

 _'Yeah, I'm ok. A couple of ground crew got hurt when a gun pod slipped off of its moorings on a TSF. One guy ended up in the hospital with broken bones. It's hard, working with these prototypes – nothing is quite what you expect.'_ Inia paused, before continuing more cautiously, _'Shinji, what I wanted to talk to you about is... my history, I guess. You know that I'm an orphan. But what I never really mentioned is that I was raised in an experimental facility. We – all the kids there – were bred for telepathic potential. It was.. It was really, really horrid. Many of the kids were physically or mentally damaged by the mutations, and then we were given drugs, and training...'_ Shinji could hear her shudder, ' _most of, of, the other kids died. You learned not to make friends, because you never knew what would happen to them. But Cryska – she was also there – she.. one day, she sat down next to me at lunch after I had had a really bad day and gave me a teddy bear and started talking to me. And.. what I'm trying to say is that if I didn't have her, I probably wouldn't have survived. You need to have somebody there for you. Somebody who is just physically there.'_

There was silence, as the movie played on. A man was arguing with a scientist about something. A huge wave was coming, possibly to sweep them both away.

 _'I understand. I'm not certain I can do it, though.'_

 _'What's there to do? Just walk over and say hi! And maybe give them a teddy bear._ ' Inia replied, sounding more cheerful again.

Shinji smiled. That was so not going to work with a teenager. Especially with a guy. _'Thanks. You're a good friend._ ' But he really appreciated the sentiment.

/\ PoC /\

The following day, Shinji staggered into class. He didn't want to be there. He wanted to be hiding under his covers. But Inia would think he was a loser if he did that. So he would try.

Conversation paused as he came in, and then swelled back up, but several students eyed him speculatively.

Class was... surprisingly ok. The teacher droned on, the students gossiped. Everything was normal. Slowly, Shinji relaxed. He was still on the outside looking in at the bustle of a regular school life. His life still sucked, but it sucked in the usual, normal, almost comforting fashion.

"Hey, kid," the bell had just rung for the day, and Shinji was gathering his books when somebody grabbed his shoulder.

"Yes?" He almost cringed.

"You pilot the giant robot that was fighting the alien things?" It was the jock, Toji. The nerd was standing behind him.

"Look, I don't want to pilot the stupid thing, but somebody has to and for some stupid reason they picked me, so I'm doing the best I can, ok!" Shinji exploded out of nowhere.

Toji carefully withdrew his hand from Shinji shoulder, so that psycho-boy wouldn't bite it or something. "Uhm, that's fine." He stood there, silently, not certain what to do. He had planned on punching the pilot for making a mess of things, but the way Shinji looked, it would be like kicking a (possibly rabid) dog.

"So, you never did come with us to the arcade," interrupted Kensuke, "the offer still stands. You want to come with us?"

Toji gave his friend a skeptical look, and then shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

And with that warm invitation, Shinji made his first friends in Tokyo-3.

/\ PoC /\

"Are you certain? I thought having a sync score of 84% with this little practice was extremely unlikely." Misato was on the phone with Ritsuko, and they were chatting about their mutual charge, Shinji.

"It may be because unit 01 has a more advanced interface. Whatever the case, I can go ahead and schedule him for more simulator time instead, like you asked." Ritsuko paused, and then asked, "does he like that? Most boys his age like the idea of shooting a big gun."

"Eh, I don't know. I don't think so, but it's hard t tell. He's the sort that does what he feels he needs to do, whether he wants to or not. He's a very responsible kid." Misato wandered into the kitchen to get another beer when the door to the apartment opened.

"I'll see you guys later." Shinji headed inside as Kensuke and Toji peered in.

"Dude!"

"She's hot!"

"Who's that?"

Shinji shut the door in their faces.

"Oh, I see you've made some friends. They even walked home with you," Misato burbled. She had been worried about her house-mate, given how withdrawn he was yesterday, but it looked like he was on the road to recovery, _'He recovered from his trauma pretty well. He might not be tough, but he is resilient.'_

"No, they just wanted to see where I lived."

"Invite them for dinner tomorrow. We'll have a celebration!"

"For what?"

"For what? Do you really need a reason to celebrate? For your arriving at Tokyo-3, for starting school, for surviving all this insanity." At the last moment she changed from saying 'survive the Angels', as too morbid.

"Ok. I'll cook today," Shinji casually displaced Misato from the kitchen before she could concoct another of her culinary catastrophes.

/\ PoC /\

"Um, hi?" Shinji stood in front of Rei as she sat under a tree, reading a book. It was lunch period in school, so the area was filled with teens chatting in small groups. Shinji had (sort of) tried to find Kensuke and Toji, but after a quick glance around the cafeteria gave up in defeat.

Now he was following Inia's advice, and trying to talk to Rei. Through the idea of one girl advising him to make friends with another one seemed sorta weird. Well, life wasn't like TV (his main resource on how human teens interacted with each other).

Rei looked up, "Yes, pilot Ikari?"

"I was thinking we should be friends, and stuff..." Shinji faltered at the cold reception. _'I bet she thinks I'm some sort of creep now.'_

"Why?"

"Because we're both pilots, and it would be convenient.."

Rei looked back down to her book, "I will if I am ordered to."

"Oh. Ok" Shinji turned and slunk of with his tail between his legs. It was just that she was so difficult to talk to, compared to Inia. It wasn't worth it.

/\ PoC /\

Shinji floated in what looked like a giant test tube, wearing only his plug suit. _'You still haven't told Cryska about our link? I thought you shared everything?'_ It was another harmonics test. It would have been the most painfully boring exercise in the world, except that he usually used the time to chat with Inia. Whatever was in the tube, it shared the same characteristic as the Eva in boosting their link.

 _'I'm worried that she will feel bad that the two of us don't have the same connection.'_ Inia temporized. The reality was that while she did idolize Cryska, it was hard not to be jealous of her a little. She was taller, prettier and the commander respected her. Inia? They treated like the sidekick. So having Shinji all to herself was very... nice. ' _How about you – are you inviting the two guys over to Misato's shindig tonight?'_

Shinji snorted, drawing a concerned look from Ritsuko, "everything ok in there, Shinji?" She glanced up from the EKG she had been monitoring.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just had to sneeze."

Ritsuko nodded and went back to adjusting the LCL composition to optimize sync. While the point of this exercise was primarily for Shinji to practice getting in sync with the Evangelion, she was also personalizing his environment to increase the ratio. She glanced over to the other test plug, where Rei was floating serenely. Both teens were very socially withdrawn. Which was part of the scenario. Ritsuko pressed her lips together in disapproval.

Shinji noticed none of this. He was even (mostly) ignoring Rei floating nearby in her skintight plug suit. _'No, I am not inviting them. The way they are obsessing about Misato is just... embarrassing.'_ The non stop barrage of 'your guardian is really hot' and 'can we come over to play video games' was getting real old now.

 _'So she's really pretty?'_

 _'I guess.'_

 _'Is she prettier than Rei?'_

Shinji glanced over at the teen in question and looked away quickly before she could notice.

" _Would you stop trying to set me up with women you have never met. Why don't you worry about your Lt. Yuuya?'_ Shinji sent in exasperation.

 _'Because I want you to have friends. And I'm not trying to set you up – especially not with that Misato woman – that would be gross – she's twice your age.'_

 _'She certainly doesn't act it.'_ Shinji replied.

There was a pause, followed by a tentative, ' _ARE you interested in her?'_

 _'NO! Anyway, I need to run through some drills next. We'll talk later?'_ Shinji sent as the time for the sync test came to an end

 _'Count on it!'_

Shinji was waiting for the LCL to finish draining as his father stepped over to where Rei was exiting her test plug. ' _Huh.'_ Rei became more animated than he had seen her before, and his father actually smiled as he talked. _'I didn't know my dad was a pedophile.'_

/\ PoC /\

The following day dragged on. Shinji found himself repeatedly falling asleep – he had stayed up later then he had planned last night, watching Misato and Ritsuko banter back and forth. It had been Misato's celebration. Shinji had decided to 'forget' to invite Kensuke and Toji: It was just too awkward – so it had been just the three of them. It was surprisingly enjoyable, watching the two friends. Especially after Misato convinced the usually straight laced Ritsuko to have a few beers.

Actually, that was how he had lived much of his life, getting vicarious enjoyment from watching other people do stuff. Except now, he had gotten pulled into actually participating in life. Though the participation was liable to kill or injure him.

In the end, he and Ritsuko had had to help steer an inebriated Misato back to her room.

Finally, the school bell rang.

"So, let's hit the arcade?" Shinji and Kensuke spent the next hour with a shooting game. It was much quieter than usual, as Toji had basketball practice, and Shinji didn't feel comfortable enough to ask Kensuke question. The other teen did talk a little, but he mostly concentrated on the game: he was very serious in his battle to kill every last zombie.

"It's too bad they don't have paint ball around here. I would love to do that," Kensuke finally volunteered, after beating Shinji handily. "I imagine you have pretty awesome training facilities at NERV, for the pilots." He paused before adding, "you could use a little work, you know."

Fortunately, Shinji didn't hear him, as he had already started to panic "Oh, shoot!"

"What's up?" Kensuke asked asked.

"I forgot, I need to give something to Rei. Do you know where she lives?" At Kensuke's shrug, he ran off, pulling out his cell phone.

Kensuke muttered "Dude. Visiting her at home? He's totally hot for her."

/\ PoC /\

 _'What are you up to?'_

 _'I'm on my way to Rei's'_

 _'Oh?'_ came the reply, dripping with innuendo.

' _No! It's not like that! It's just that Ritsuko asked me to give Rei her new ID badge at school today, and I forgot.. So I called up NERV and got her home address.'_

 _'Hmm. Well, that is very responsible of you,'_ Inia paused, _'So... what does she look like? You've talked about her a couple of times now, but you've never told me anything about her appearance.'_

 _'Well, she's average height, maybe a little shorter than me, slim.'_

 _'Does she have a big chest?'_

"WHAT? NO" Shinji blurted out. Fortunately, this part of Tokyo-3 was still under construction, so there was nobody around to see him talking to himself. _'No, the most striking thing about her is that she has blue hair. Otherwise, she's very quiet. I've never seen her talk to anybody.'_ Well, except his dad, but he avoided thinking about him as much as possible anyways, so he didn't count.

 _'Maybe she dyes it?'_

 _'No, her eyebrows are the same color.'_

 _'Hmm. A lot of the kids in my program also had strangely colored hair, though most had white like me. Maybe she was also engineered for telepathy. It would make sense, given the Evangelion user interface.'_

 _'Well, I'm here at her apartment.'_ If you could call it that. Shinji hadn't been paying much attention on the walk over, as he 'talked' to Inia, but now he realized how empty and unfinished everything looked – there were no covers over the lights, and several weren't even installed. And some people had taken advantage of that, spray paining the entryway with graffiti. Here at Rei's apartment, the mailbox was jammed with mail that had never been taken in.

 _'Let me try something.'_ Shinji concentrated on Rei and sent ' _CAN YOU HEAR ME?"_

 _'Yes, I can hear you. No need to yell.'_

 _'Not you – I was trying to reach Rei, to see if she's a telepath.'_

 _'Oh. And did you?'_

" _I don't thinks so. Unless she's ignoring me, or she's not here.'_ In retrospect, it was a pretty dumb experiment. Shinji looked around, but there was no place to leave the ID card where Rei was likely to find it. He tentatively tried the door handle. "Hello? Anybody here?"

 _'Slip it under her door.'_

 _'Her place is a mess, she'll never find it. Her doors unlocked, so I'll just drop it on her nightstand or something.'_

Shinji pushed the door open "Hello? I'm coming in!" and walked in, _'It's almost as bad as Misato's. Are all girls this messy?'_ He looked around the sparsely furnished room which was covered in old bandages, school papers and clothes (not that there were many of these, and they were all just school uniforms). There were dishes on the counter, and a dirty pot on the stove. The only spot that was tidy was the top of a dresser, where a single pair of glasses rested.

He walked over and put the card next to it. He was just turning to leave when the bathroom door opened, "Oh, hey, Rei, I didn't think anybody was hea-YEAhhh...!" Shinji squawked and flailed as Rei walked out of the bathroom completely stark naked. He took a step back, flinging a hand in front of his face to provide her with some modesty. As he did, his foot slipped on a discarded bra and he fell, still flailing, onto his back.

Rei walked calmly over and stared down at the prone boy, "What are you doing here, pilot Ikari?"

Shinji lay there staring up at the (still nude) Rei Ayanami as he tried to process that. _'Why _am_ I here?'_ He had no good answers, and he had lost his connection to Inia when he had first started to panic, so he just stared up at Rei for several moments as his brain rebooted. And promptly crashed again as he realized he was staring at a naked woman.

Finally, he turned to stare at a wall, "Um, I ah, brought over your new ID card. For NERV." he managed to stutter. He could hear Rei getting dressed behind him.

Finally the sound stopped, and he dared a glance behind him, to find the room empty. He scampered up and glanced around. Rei must have left. _'That was very strange.'_ He paused and repeated it out loud. "That was really freaking weird!" Just in case some unseen cosmic force was watching him. He wanted to be clear that stuff like this didn't usually happen to him, and it wasn't his fault. He wasn't a pervert.

Well, he should get going to NEV. He wasn't scheduled for simulator time today, but maybe Ritsuko would let him use it anyway - he really needed to blow stuff up.

' _Shinji, you ok?'_ came a panicked voice in his head.

' _Yeah, I'm fine. It turns out that Rei was there – she was in the bathroom. When she came out, she startled me badly.'_ He decided to omit the details. All of them.

 _'So you never told me – is she pretty?'_

Shinji lost the connection again.

/\ PoC /\

"Tonosawa listening post has a radar echo. No IFF..." Makoto announced as he read off his screen. The rest of the command center fell silent. "They confirm signal is Blue shifted. It's an Angel"

"Bring up a video feed," Misato commanded.

The main view screen turned on, showing a giant floating duotertahedron, reflecting a slight blue light.

"Maya, contact the pilots and have them report to action stations."

Maya checked her console, "Both pilots are checked in on base. I will page them."

/\ PoC /\

"We're not certain what the capabilities of this new Angel. So far, it has shrugged off an artillery barrage and several cruise missiles, but that's typical. It has not responded in any fashion to the attacks." Shinji listed to Misato's briefing as Evangelion 01 was prepped for launch. "I want you to approach cautiously. Stay to cover. Don't shoot until you are close enough to neutralize its AT field."

"Yes, ma'am," Shinji responded.

"Unit 00 will be on standby to assist. Good luck."

The cage holding Unit 01 rolled back to elevator 2 and shot up to the surface.

* * *

Hello guys, if you liked this story, you can read more: I am going to try my hand at original writing,

You can see my efforts here:

bonanza booths/Writeshop/

a selection will also be uploaded to my Fictionpress account

(link is my author page)

or you can search for writeshop on fictionpress. com


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Shinji opened his eyes. His body hurt like he had a sunburn. Everywhere. He stared up at the ceiling _'Inia?'_ there was no reply. He wasn't certain where he was, or what had happened. Last he remembered, he was launching in Eva 01.

Given how much he hurt, something bad must have happened after that. He was just considering whether he should attempt to sit up when Rei walked into his room "I'm here to inform you of the schedule of Operation Yashima. It will commence 0:00 – midnight."

Shinji watched in quiet horror as Rei rattled off the details. He missed most of them as he focused on the fact that he would have to get back in the Evangelion.

"Do I really have to pilot again?" He asked rhetorically.

"Yes. This operation requires two pilots. " Rei replied coldly, before adding, "otherwise I would carry it out myself."

"I know. I wasn't really asking. It's just..." As Shinji faded to a stop Rei continued to stand and watch him, "Rei, why do you pilot?"

"It is my connection."

"Connection to who? My father?"

"To all humanity."

Shinji stared down at his blanket covered lap. Rei turned to go, but he finally replied, "I pilot because it's the right thing to do. Because somebody has to, or all of humanity will die, and if I don't somebody else will have to suffer in my place. And that's not fair." Shinji looked up at Rei, "Your reason is so much better than mine." He tried to smile.

Rei considered ,"No. You just have other ways of connecting to people," and turned to go.

/\ PoC /\

"I have secured the use of a particle cannon, and had it wired to the entire Japanese power grid." Shinji and Rei stood in front of Misato in their plug suits, as she described her plan to have Shinji snipe the Angel from outside it's 'aggro' zone, with Rei standing by to use a shield to defend him, just in case.

"Remember, if you miss on the first shot, it will take at least ten seconds to swap out the fuses and re-energize the cannon. So don't miss!"

"Yes, Ma'am" the two pilots replied in unison.

 _'Shinji?'_ Shinji had just walked out onto the hillside to watch the final preparations when Inia contacted him him, _'Is everything ok? You weren't available at the usual time.'_

 _'I was in the hospital, unconscious.'_ Shinji explained what had happened with his last sortie, as best as he could recall, ' _And now I have to try to take it down again.'_

 _'Stay calm. It's just like practice. Let Rei take care of everything else – you just concentrate on shooting.'_ Inia reassured Shinji. ' _I'm going to cut contact to let you concentrate. I'll talk to you tomorrow, ok?'_

' _Ok,'_ Shinji smiled.

Misato watched Shinji stare of into the distance silently. She was worried: nobody seemed to realize or care that they were forcing untrained teens to do things that most adults couldn't handle. Not and stay sane.

She walked up and stood next to the teen, staring out into the distance with him. "Hey, Shinji, you want to talk?"

 _'I got to go.'_ Shinji sent. "About?"

"Are you worried about what you have to do?"

"Some, but all I have to do is to shoot the Angel, just like in practice. Everything else I'm going to leave to Rei and you."

Misato looked at the young man in surprise. "That is a very good way to handle this." She examined Shinji, trying to discern if he really meant that. "I just want to say that I don't know how you do it, but I am very proud of you."

"Thirty minutes until start of Operation Yashima." Blared the the PA system, "all personnel to your posts."

Shinji ran to the gerry-rigged Eva dock on the hillside overlooking Tokyo-3. The whole instillation looked like it had been knocked together in a couple of hours (because it had). The command center was a large trailer, with radio gear mounted on two neighboring flatbeds. Huge cables covered most of the open space, running to the massive particle cannon, which was set up so that it could be fired by a prone Evangelion.

"Good luck!' called out a tech as Shinji got into his entry plug.

/\ PoC /\

Shinji was laying on his bed, his DAT player plugged into his ears. To all the world, he looked like he was lost in his own world. Which he sort of was, but it wasn't what the casual observer would have expected. Currently there was no one to observe him, though: he was alone in the apartment as Misato had gone off picking up Toji and Kensuke.

 _'So, how did it go?_ ' Inia asked with baited breath. She hadn't spoken to Shinji in three days. But it wasn't like she was being clingy – they were three very important days. The fact that she had manged to reach Shinji was a good sign – he had survived, at least.

 _'It went ok, almost. I missed on my first shot, and then Rei had to deflect the counter attack while I reloaded, but I got it on the second. Evangelion 00 got a little melted, and Rei was a little shaken up, but nothing major.'_ At least, Shinji assumed that she was: when he had pulled her out of her entry plug she had seemed almost human.

 _'Well, that's your opportunity to get to know her. Bring her flowers or something while she's in the hospital.'_

 _'I don't think she's in the hospital anymore – Ritsuko checked her out, and she was back in school today. Oh, that reminds me, I had to stop a rampaging TSF. It was a project of one of NERV's competitors. I wasn't impressed. It was as big as Evangelion, and it looked like a walking tank, but without an AT field, it's not much use against an Angel. And something went wrong with the remote control.'_

 _'So what happened?'_

 _'I wasn't there at the start, but apparently the big wigs on the ground got it started walking, and then it just refused to accept any other commands – Misato had me airlifted in and I slowed it down so that she could get inside and manually shut it down.'_

 _'You a must be a very big strong man to be able to stop a TSF with your bare hands.'_ Inia giggled.

 _'You know what I meant – I was in my Eva,'_ Shinji smiled. _'So what have you been up to – you missed our usual 'rendezvous'.'_

There was a pause, and Shinji began to panic that Inia might have gotten annoyed at his joke. He wasn't trying to be pushy or flirtatious or anything, but not being able to see her face made it both easier and harder: easier in that he could say things he would never even DREAM of saying in person, but harder because he couldn't tell if she was getting annoyed with him. Finally, she replied sheepishly. ' _We were working on high G turns, to see how well the new systems handled, and I blacked out.'_

Shinji bolted upright in his bed, ' _What? Are you ok? Why didn't you tell me?'_ That was one of his fears: If Inia died, he would never know. And it could happen. She was in the military, after all.

 _'I'm fine, I recovered in a couple of minutes, but my telepathy was not working until just now_.' Inia paused, and then pressed on. ' _So tell me what else is going on?'_

Shinji decided to let it slide. Not that there was anything he could do to help in this situation. _'Anyway, we're going to go rendezvous with the the fleet bringing Evangelion unit 02 and the pilot this afternoon. It should be interesting. Misato said I could bring along a couple of friends. Kensuke – he's the military geek I mentioned – is so excited that he's been texting me every 10 minutes.'_

 _'I hope you have fun. We will be going down to the West Indies for hot weather tests. And there is gossip that we'll have several days of leave there, too!'_ Shinji could hear the excitement in the girls 'voice'. _'We'll get to laze around in the sun and everything! I hope I don't burn – I've never been to any place that sunny before!'_

 _'Me either. I've never..'_ The door to the apartment opened and Misato stormed in.

"Shinji, we got to go! I got stuck behind this horrible truck, and we're running late. Our take-off slot is in fifteen minutes!"

 _'I'll talk later. I have to go risk my life in Misato's automobile.'_ Shinji signed off as he grabbed his duffel bag and went down to strap himself into Misato 'death rocket'.

"Hey, dude! I can't believe you invited us! This is so cool! Thank you!" This came gushing out from the back seat as soon as Shinji opened the car door.

Toji just rolled his eyes. Before glancing surreptitiously at Misato.

Shinji carefully strapped himself in, checking his seat belt twice, before Misato mashed the gas pedal through the floor. The speed didn't bother Shinji as much as it had the first time he had gotten into Misato's car. He would have felt better if he was the one at the controls, though.

Once on board the helicopter that was going to take them out to the fleet, things got boring really quick: It was too loud to talk, and shortly they were out of cell ranges, so they couldn't text anybody. Shinji was stuck alone with his thoughts. Not a terribly pleasant experience, as the more he thought, the more he began to doubt himself. What was the point of them flying out to meet the fleet? Why was he here? Wouldn't somebody else be better as a pilot for the Evangelion? Usually when he got into this sort of funk, Inia could cheer him up, but she had her own work to do. He couldn't wait for tomorrows 'call', though.

/\ PoC /\

Earlier

Misato leaned against Ritsuko's desk, a mug of coffee in her hands, "I just don't know what to do with that kid. He's completely socially withdrawn. All he does is lay on his futon and listen to the that stupid SDAT. I hate that thing."

Ritsuko leaned back in her chair and looked up at her friend. She grabbed up her own coffee mug. "What about those two boys – the ones you said he was friends with?" She took a sip and grimaced. It was cold. Oh well. It wasn't worth the effort to get a fresh cup – it's not like it would taste any better.

"He hangs out with them a little, but he never shows any interest in doing anything with them."

"So invite all three of them to some outing." Ritsuko sipped her coffee again. It still tasted like stale cigarette smoke. "Or better, make him invite them."

Misato nodded, "that could work. Better than your attempt to try to get Shinji to make friends with Rei."

"Hey, that was your idea. And I told you it wouldn't work." She finished off her vile coffee, pretending to herself that she liked it.

/\ PoC /\

Time passed as the helicopter beat the air into submission. Fortunately, the flight to the air craft carrier was only about an hour. As they were coming in for the landing, Kensuke was glued to the window like a bug splatted on a windshield. Shinji was worried that he would accidentally push his face through the glass. As the helicopter landed, and the motor turned off, Shinji realized that Kensuke was talking non stop, and probably had been for some time now.

"And that's an Aegis destroyer. I would have expected it to be further out from the rest of the battle group." Kensuke babbled as they filed out onto the landing deck. There they were met by a pair of officers standing at attention and teenage girl in a sun dress that was whipping around in the breeze.

As soon as she spotted Misato, she called out, "Hello, Misato. How are you?" In a surprisingly formal fashion.

Misato smiled and waved, "As well as ever. You've grown tall, haven't you?" At which point the girl spoiled the 'mature' image " Yeah! And not just taller - my figure has filled out, too." Misato tried not to snort as she turned back to the three boys, "Let me introduce you - this is the exclusive pilot of Evangelion Unit Two, the Second Child, Sohryu Asuka Langley." As she was saying this, the hat Toji was wearing blew off and skittered towards Asuka, who firmly planted her foot on it to keep it from going any further. As Toji dived to recover it, the wind whipped her dress up, giving him an eyeful.

"Ow, what did you do that for?" Toji put a hand to his cheek, where Asuka had slapped him.

"It's a viewing fee."

"Oh, yeah? Here's your change!" And pulled down his trousers. Shinji turned his back on the whole debacle, and tried to project 'I don't know these people. I have nothing to do with them'.

"So, which of these is the Third Child?" Asuka finally asked.

"The gentleman with his back turned," Misato replied.

"Huh. What a boring boy."

/\ PoC /\

As they headed down to the mess hall for a belated lunch, a rumpled looking businessman came up to meet them.

"You!" Misato's eyes widened. At the same time Asuka skipped over to the scruffy older man and latched onto his arm. "And this is Kaji Ryouji, my escort."

The man in question smiled banally, "Hello, Misato. It's been a while."

"Not long enough," She muttered, but forced a smile. No need to air dirty laundry in public. "Let's go get something to eat before we talk." Apparently, Asuka took that to mean that she could expound on whatever topic she saw fit without interruption - she monopolized the conversation to the point that nobody else could say anything. At first she kept trying to direct it at Ryouji. But he was skilled at deflecting her attention, so she was soon expostulating towards the boys.

Toji and Kensuke were split between hanging on her every word and glaring at her for her behavior, while Misato and Ryouji tried to assiduously ignore each other (well, it was actually Misato trying to ignore Ryouji, who smiled and acted friendly).

"What are you doing here?" Misato hissed as they walked into the mess hall. It was almost empty, as lunch was finishing up.

Ryouji shrugged, "Since I had business in Japan, NERV asked me to escort Asuka."

"I should have figured you would fine some way to turn up." Misato turned to get her food and walked away.

She ended up taking a table at the far end of the cafeteria, where the three boys joined her, sitting in a loose knot around one of the tables.

From the other end of the room, where she almost hanging off of Ryouji as he got himself a coffee, Asuka huffed, "it's too bad that the Third Child is such a boring boy," casting an annoyed glance at Shinji. Unlike the other two boys, he had his back to her, and wasn't sneaking periodic glances her way.

"Well, for a boring boy, he's done pretty well. You know his sync ration was over 60% on his first sortie."

"What!" Asuka gawked at Shinji, who looked very inconspicuous as he ate his omelet. She stormed over, grabbing him by the arm. "Come on, then!" And pulled him out of his seat.

"Wait, what?" Shinji gabbled, fork clutched in his hand, "I'm still eating.."

"I bet you got a 60% sync score because you were using the prototype. My unit 02 is the first true Evangelion, and it requires real skill to pilot. Come on, I'll show you, and you will understand!" She dragged Shinji towards the inter-fleet ferry.

/\ PoC /\

"And this is unit 02. It's not a prototype, like your unit. This is the final design. Its faster, stronger, and all around better. So that is why it is harder to sync with than your Eva." Asuka gestured to the red behemoth strapped into a carry-cradle.

 _'She's a really annoying girl,'_ Shinji had tuned out what Asuka was saying half way through. He was trying to decide what to do with the fork that he was still holding when the ship lurched.

"What...?"

"It's a shock wave – something exploded in the water."

"Do you think... it's an Angel?" Shinji asked with trepidation.

A huge smile spread across Asuka's face. "Come on, now's my chance to really show you!"

"What?"

"Here, get into my spare," Asuka rummaged in the locker off to one side of the room before throwing a red plug suit to Shinji. "Stay there, and don't peek!" Asuka ran behind a stack of crates. A moment later, she returned, dressed in her plug suit. "Well, how come your not dressed?"

"Asuka, you're the pilot – I don't need a plug suit. Besides, I wouldn't fit into yours." And there was no way that Shinji was getting dressed in girls' clothing, even if it was 90% androgynous.

Asuka rolled her eyes at how stubborn and thick headed boys could be. "Fine. Just get in."

Shinji clambered into the entry plug. It was smaller than the one in unit 01, forcing the two teens into close proximity.

''Here, sit!" Asuka commanded as the entry plug began to fill with LCL.

Shinji sat.

It was only afterwards that his brain processed that there was only one place to sit – the command chair – and two people. But fortunately, he didn't have long to be confused by this conundrum as Asuka sat down on his lap

"Don't get any ideas, Third!" the LCL supported most of her weight, so it was not uncomfortable.

/\ PoC /\

"Sir, the unidentified sonar return is circling again for another pass," one of the bridge crew called out to the captain.

"It's an Angel" Misato burst through the hatch. "Prepare the emergency umbilical and tell unit 02 to launch." It was a good thing that Asuka had decided to drag Shinji out to show off her Evangelion. Otherwise this would be much more complicated.

"What are you doing on the bridge? This is a combat situation!" The captain demanded.

"Correct, sir. And as your orders state, I am to take command if this fleet encounters an Angel in a 'combat situation'!" Misato went over to the radio station and connected to the Evangelion's channel. "What's your situation, Asuka?"

"Ready to launch!"

"Go ahead and launch."

/\ PoC /\

"Why is it not responding!" Asuka growled, "It's your fault!" She turned to look over her shoulder at Shinji, "Synchronize with me! We need to both be sending commands, otherwise the thought noise will stop it."

Shinji nodded, and took a deep breath of the disgusting fluid. He pushed himself into the trance state he had perfected for communicating with Inia. Usually when he was piloting his Evangelion, he couldn't lose himself completely into it, as he had to stay aware of his surrounding to pilot, but this time he was just here for support.

He imagined he could feel a slow pulse running through the Evangelion, and a sense of... something, almost animal. He then reached out to Asuka, feeling for her pride and anger.

It was strange. He realized that it was all probably in his head, but he could feel a sense of connection, like he was a conduit between the pilot and the machine.

"Shiest! Don't squirm so much!" Asuka muttered as she slipped in Shinji's lap from the Evangelion standing up. But her link was good. She could feel... everything! This was way better than practice. _'Adrenaline is what makes the difference. It's probably why that baka was able to sync do well.'_ But she quickly put the Third Child out of her mind as she burst out of the hold, leaping to the top of the transport's superstructure.

Swimming right towards them was a huge shark like something – the Angel. And it was going to ram their transport.

"Asuka, leap to the 'Over the rainbow' – we have a power coupling ready!" Misato called over the radio.

Asuka leaped to a neighboring cruiser, and then over to the carrier, setting the cruiser rocking dangerously.

As the Angel turned towards the carrier, Asuka grabbed the power coupling and jammed it into the access port.

"Angel attack imminent!" Came the voice over the radio.

Asuka whirled back in time to see the shark thing leap out of the water directly at her Evangelion.

"Grab it with the AT field," Shinji muttered, trying to stay in 'the zone', syncing Asuka to the Evangelion. Asuka nodded, catching the monster fish, slowing it with her AT field.

As the Angel's AT field canceled theirs, the Evangelion grasped the the fish and wrestle it to the deck. The powerful shark muscles flipped the two of them over from side to side, the Evangelion barely holding on.

"Asuka! The core is in the thing's mouth. Get it to open it's mouth and stab it!"

Asuka momentarily quailed at the idea of shoving her hand into that tooth studded jaw. But she began to clamber up the length of the body, inching her grip up towards the mouth as she struggled to not be knocked loose as the Angel buffeted them against the carrier deck. Several helicopters and a jet were knocked overboard. One VTOL managed to take off at the last moment, and there was some radio traffic – somebody was yelling at the pilot – but Asuka was too focused on holding on and clawing her way up to the jaws.

She had just reached the mouth, and was starting to pry them open, when Misato yelled, "Asuka! Lookout!" Asuka just had time to glance up before the Angel flopped over the side and back into the water. With Unit 02 still holding on.

As the Evangelion was pulled in, Asuka froze. "Asuka. Stab in through the gills!" Shinji pointed to the structure that the Evangelion was holding tight to – the underside looked a lot more delicate than the outside of the Angel.

Asuka grabbed a progressive knife and pushed it in, angling it towards where the back of the mouth should be. As it went in, the Angel began to thrash and buck, Asuka held on tight, "I can't get it any further in – it's too tough."

"Focus! I'll help." The two teens tried to stab it with their sheer force of will, squinting as they growled in unison. The knife slipped in, and with a crack like a glass shattering, the Angel spasmed and was still.

"Are you ok in there?"

"Yes, Misato," came the reply in unison. Asuka glanced in horror at Shinji.

"Ok, I'll reel you in." The power coupling began to draw the Evangelion upwards, like a giant fish hook.

"Stop touching me, you pervert!" Asuka tried to push Shinji away.

"There's no room! I can't move!" Shinji burbled as Asuka pushed his face into the back of the pilot's seat.

"What's going on? Is Shinji in there as well?"

/\ PoC /\

As Shinji staggered out of the entry plug under the bemused eye of Misato, He glanced over at Asuka, _'that was not what I expected.'_ He had expected to feel a sense of pride, or anger radiating from the red head.

"So, you have a good time in close quarters?" Misato asked, to Kensuke and Toji's hoots.

"It wasn't like that!" Protested Shinji.

"It was all the pervert's fault!" Asuka said at the same time.

"You're lucky that the Evangelion functioned with both of you inside. Ristuko said that having a second person in there could mess up the synchronization." Misato got serious for a moment, before shrugging – they had won after all - "Let's go finish lunch."

"Blearg! Not until I have a chance to shower." Asuka struck a horrified pose.

 _'You know, the main sense I got from her was loneliness. And fear.'_ Shinji cast a surreptitious glance at the other pilot. _'She's a lot like I was, before Inia.'_

* * *

Please leave a review. It really helps motivate me to write.

Let me know what you liked, and what you didn't.


	4. Chapter 4

chapter 4

"Have you taken a look at the data from the last battle?" Ritsuko held up a ream of print outs.

"You know that stuff is all gobbledygook to me." Misato took a sip of her coffee.

"According to the theory, when you have two people trying to sync with the same Eva, their brainwaves will interfere, and their sync score will drop. But Asuka and Shinji manged to boost their sync score. It was in the 80s, which is higher than either pilot has exhibited before."

"Maybe we should look into putting a second pilot's seat into the entry plugs."

"Maybe," Ritsuko mused, "Except we don't have any spare pilots. But it might be worthwhile doing some experiments, to find out what exactly is happening."

"Yeah," Misato mused, "that could be interesting from a purely personal perspective." She envisioned having two teens in the cramped environs of an entry plug, ' _Huh, let's see how Shinji reacts to spending an hour with Asuka or Rei in close proximity. That'll bring him out of his shell.'_

/\ PoC /\

"Do you think this is ok?" Kensuke asked as he counted the money. He and Toji were under the stairs at the back of the school, selling photos of Asuka that Kensuke had taken on Over the Rainbow.

"What? You're always talking about how much money you can earn with your photos. Well, here it is! And if we are going to be stuck in the same class as that red devil, we might as well get some benefit from it."

"I guess. I just don't want to get slapped." The money WAS good – it was incredible how many guys were obsessing over the European girl. They were even jamming her locker with love letters, which she promptly threw out. With scorn.

"It's a good thing they don't know her personality, or they wouldn't be so interested."

Meanwhile, the object of their discussion was at the other end of the building, on her way to get lunch.

"Asuka, do you want me to show you around?" Shinji asked querulously. He was determined to help Asuka the way that Inia had helped him, but …

"No, Third. I don't need your help." Asuka jerked her chin up and stalked off, a trail of male eyes following her. She was determined to show that she didn't need anybody.

Shinji sighed. This was a lot harder than he had thought, ' _Inia? Any advice? I tried talking to Asuka like you recommended, but she just brushed me off.'_

 _'Huh. That's strange. I had no problem with getting Yuuya to follow me around, back at the Alaska base.'_

 _'That's because you're a pretty girl. It doesn't work like that for guys!'_ Shinji replied exasperated.

There was a pause, and then: _'You think I'm pretty?'_

Shinji paused to consider how to answer that, _'Well, I've never seen you, but you're 5'7", slim and ah.. buxom. I bet any guy would think you are attractive._ '

There was a subdued 'oh' from the other end. Shinji glanced up to see where the redhead had gotten to. It wasn't difficult – he could just follow the wake of male classmates. "Oh, this is not going to end well." he muttered, ' _Asuka is going over to talk to Rei. And I bet you Rei is going to snub her. And Asuka is not going to handle it well.' T_ here was nothing he could do, so he just watched , _'yup. Huh. No explosion. Maybe she handled it better than I thought.'_

 _'Shinji,'_ Inia sounded disappointed, _'just because a person doesn't show that they are hurt, doesn't mean they aren't. Especially girls.'_

 _'Um, yeah. I used to be that way. Not that I'm a girl or anything!'_ Shinji quickly added.

 _'Oh, I don't know – I think you would look good in a dress.'_

 _'Cut it out!_ ' Shinji squawked, horrified. He wasn't going to wear a girl's plug suit, much less a dress.

 _'I'm sorry. I didn't mean..'_ Inia began.

"I have to go," Shinji cut her off. A moment later, his cell hone rang.

"Shinji report to NERV HQ. We have detected another Angel."

"Yes, Ma'am."

/\ PoC /\

"The seventh Angel is approaching off the coast of the Kii peninsula. It will make land fall in an hour. That will give us just enough time to get the Evangelions there. I want you to coordinate your attacks. This is the first time we have numerical superiority to the Angel, so let's use that to our advantage." Misato looked at the two teens. Shinji nodded, but Asuka just looked bored. 'W _hy do I have to work with teenagers. They don't listen',_ "Asuka, coordinate with Shinji so that we can keep the Angel localized on the peninsula, away from the inhabited areas."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Dismissed, now get to your Evas."

As the two teens went over to the cages, Asuka grabbed Shinji's shoulder. "You stay out of my way, Third. I'll deal with this Angel."

"We were instructed to work together."

Asuka rolled her eyes, "So you make sure that there are no civilians around to get trampled when I attack. I don't need support – I am more than a match for any Angel: I have been training for this since I was ten!" She went up to climb into her entry plug.

/\ PoC /\

The giant figure was slowly wading ashore. This Angel was surprisingly anthropomorphic, except for the lack of neck – it just had a shapeless lump for a head protruding from it chest.

"Asuka, stay back and provide supporting fire as Shinji circles to the left and closes with the Angel." Misato called out "Asuka! Where are you... Follow orders, Asuka!" Misato took another breath to berate the errant teen as Evangelion 02 leaped into the fray, lashing out with its halberd to cleave the Angel in two. "Oh."

Asuka turned to face Shinji, who was still standing on shore, gapping, "And that is how you do it, Third!"

"Asuka, look out!" Shinji called out.

Moments later, both Evangelions were sprawled on a sand dune, as the angel, now split into two identical humanoids, wadded towards them through loose sand.

/\ PoC /\

"What did I say?" Misato stormed, as the two teens stood at attention before her, "I said work together. Instead, you, Asuka had to grand stand, and then you both ended up getting knocked head over keister. You embarrassed NERV publicly. The UN had to intervene, dropping an N2 mine on the Angel halves." Misato waved to the screen showing the two Angels stuck waist deep in sand that had been melted into glass. "According to Ritsuko's projections, we have a week before it – they - get out. That's how long we have to come up with a strategy to destroy it."

Misato sighed and looked at her two charges "So, do you have any ideas?"

"No, ma'am." It appeared that the two teens had weathered the (immediate) storm. Now they just had to not die when they fought the Angel next time. But that was a problem for next week.

"Dismissed. Go get cleaned up."

As soon as the pair were out of earshot of their commanding officer, Asuka turned towards Shinji, growling, "this is your fault for not backing me up properly, Third."

"What? You ran off without waiting for me. Misato gave us a perfectly good plan, but you changed it!'

"No battle plan survives contact with enemy. You need to improvise."

Shinji drew himself back as Asuka leaned in, waggling her finger at him. He knew that she was wrong. He had talked to Inia about this. You don't 'improvise' in combat, you 'adjust'. Meaning you start with the original plan and try to make it work, not throw it out the window. "Ok."

Asuka glared at him for a moment longer before storming off to the locker rooms.

/\ PoC /\

Shinji took his time getting changed. After showering and getting dressed in his civvies, he sat in the locker room. He wanted to talk to Inia about what to do next, but he didn't want to tell her what had happened: it was too embarrassing. And when he walked out of the locker room, somebody would want to interact with him. They would ask him what happened, what went wrong. And he didn't want to talk about it.

When he finally stepped out, he headed up to the surface and then walked up to the overlook where he could see all of Tokyo-3. There was a little path along the hill side, and he made his way to a grassy spot where he could lay and look at the sky

It was almost dinner time when he finally got home. Much to his surprise, the entire entry way was packed with moving boxes.

"Um, Misato, what's going on?" Shinji peered into his room, to find Asuka arranging her clothes into his drawers.

"Isn't it obvious, Third child? I am moving in. You have been replaced."

Before Shinji could say anything, Misato stepped in from the living room, "no Asuka, you will both be living here."

"What? No! It's not appropriate for a teenage boy and girl to live together!"

"Don't worry, you won't be unsupervised. But the plan for dealing with the Angel calls for you to be in complete coordination. That means for the next week, you will be doing everything together – eating together, living together and training together." She turned to Shinji and pointed to the small second room, "I'm sorry Shinji, but I moved your stuff to the other room, as Asuka has a crap ton of junk."

"That's ok, Misato. I don't need much."

Misato scowled as she nodded, _'That boy needs to come out of his shell. Maybe having Asuka here will be good in the long run as well.'_

"Well, I won't stand for it!" Asuka pronounced, only to wilt under Misato's glare.

"You will follow orders. If you had followed orders back in battle, we wouldn't be in this situation!"

"Yes, ma'am", came the tentative reply.

/\ PoC /\

As Kensuke and Toji approached the door of their missing classmate, they were met with the sound of classical dance music – a waltz or something like that (Kensuke was mostly tone deaf, and Toji didn't care about old-people music).

Kensuke knocked. "Um, hi. We're here to check up on Shinji – he hasn't been at school for a couple of days." And for Toji to ogle Misato some more, but that didn't need to be said.

"Come in." The music turned off as Misato opened the door, to reveal Shinji and Asuka dressed in matching leotards as they stood over a twister board, in close proximity.

"What are you doing here?" they ask in unison.

"The better question is what are you doing, here?" Kensuke made a lecherous face.

"It's nothing like that - these two have just been working on coordination training." Misato sighed, "It hasn't been going so well." She gestured to where the two teens who had quickly moved away from each other.

"That's because this idiot keeps zoning out on me. It's like he's not even paying any attention at all." Asuka was furious. They were supposed to step on that stupid twister board at the same time, like some sort of dance. That was bad enough, but the baka was making her look like a klutz!

Shinji flinched. He HAD been talking to Inia sometimes during training (a little bit) but he didn't think anybody would notice.

"Asuka, you have not been putting your best effort into this either," Misato countered, "You have intentionally been pushing faster than Shinji can keep up."

"Is it my fault that the Third Child is slow? Am I supposed to hold back for him?"

"Um, Excuse me?" Hikari pushed through the half closed front door, "I was coming by to bring Asuka the classwork she missed."

Misato turned towards the pig tailed girl, "So, are you flexible?"

"Um, a little? I took acrobatics in primary school."

"Well, come give this a shot" Misato waved towards where Shinji was standing on the Twister board and turned the music back on.

"Wait, she's not a pilot!" Asuka shouted at the same time as Shinji interjected, "Asuka's my partner for this!"

Asuka froze and glanced at Shinji as the male pilot held up his hand, "look, I'll try to be less distracted, and you know, concentrate more on what we are doing, but you have to slow down a little. Deal?"

Misato jaw hit the floor, _'He .. that was actually very well said. Where did those interpersonal skills_

 _come from?'_

At the same time Asuka slowly pivoted to look at Shinji. Shinji stood calmly and waited. "Fine. I will teach you." Asuka took a ready position, "Well, what are you waiting for, baka?"

This time, the two teens were much closer to being in sync, with Asuka athleticism and Shinji's preternatural ability to read what Asuka was going to do next helping them overcome each other's mistakes.

/\ PoC /\

That evening, as he lay on his futon, Shinji connected to Inia, _'I think I'm going to have to go off line for a bit, so that I can concentrate more on this coordination training with Asuka."_

 _'That makes sens_ e,' Came the reply, ' _How long will you be gone?'_

 _'We have to fight the Angel in less than a week, so it will all be over by then.'_

 _'Ok._ ' There was a pause, ' _I'll miss you.'_

Shinji wasn't certain how to respond. He finally sent, ' _And I'll miss you too'_ , but by then Inia had disconnected.

/\ PoC /\

The next several days were spent in intense training. Asuka and Shinji did everything together. They ate together, they trained together, the brushed their teeth together. And through out it all, they strived to keep their motions in sync.

"This is the most frustrating process ever!" Asuka fumed. "You are so slow at everything!"

Shinji just shrugged. They were having dinner alone, as Misato had called in to say that she had to prep for the battle that was scheduled for the following day.

"You know, we should do something, since we're all alone like this" Asuka gave a side-long glance at Shinji to see if he would respond.

"Uhh... Do you want to watch TV? Just for a bit?"

There was quiet pause, and then: "You're such a child!" Asuka huffed and stormed into her room, leaving Shinji to clean up the plates.

After putting everything away, Shinji knocked tentatively on Asuka's door, "I was serious about watching TV. I'll even let you choose what to watch."

There was no response. Shinji waited for a moment and was just turning to go when Asuka called through the door, "Go to sleep, baka. Tomorrow is our big day."

/\ PoC /\

The appointed day finally dawned, and both teens woke up early from nervous energy.

"Are you ready?" Misato asked of both pilots as they activated their Evangelions. At the positive response, she keyed on the music, "remember, stay together. Just like you trained. Now go kick some ass!'

"Misato!" Came he scandalized response from Maya.

Misato turned off her mike and replied, "They can use all the encouragement they can get."

The battle proceeded with a precision that showed the long hours of practice that they had put in, though not necessarily much grace. The two Evangelions darted in just as the angels pulled themselves free of their encasing glass. Then, each leaped forward, kicking their respective opponents in the head, sending them to the ground. With a back flip, they landed and lunged forward, jamming their Progressive knives into the Angels' cores at the same moment.

It was quick. It was accurate. Shinji was amazed at how easy it had been. ' _I wish all practice paid off like this.'_ He was just turning to congratulate Asuka when the cores blew up.

The two Evangelions flew through the air, flailing in synchonicity, before landing in a sand dune. Asuka grumbled, "It's all your fault. If I wasn't forced to perform at your level, this would never have happened!"

Shinji didn't reply, letting Asuka fume on her own, but as they exited their Evangelions and finally made it to the changing rooms, he turned to the fiery red head, "Um, so.. do you want to go watch TV?"

Asuka rolled her eyes. "Way to set the bar real low, baka." But as she turned away Shinji caught the small smirk that formed on her face.


	5. Chapter 5

_'We have the next week off. we're going to go spend it on the beach! The weather has been great, and we managed to get all the testing done early. Not that the two are connected mind you.'_ Inia was gushing.

' _Didn't they tell you when you went down to Tahiti or wherever that if you finished early, you could take leave down there?'_ Shinji asked

 _'Well, ok, so they are indirectly related. And we have been working hard. But it is so WARM. You can walk around in a t-shirt and shorts. Or even less!'_ Inia added, sounding half scandalized.

' _What's the big deal? Haven't you worn a swimsuit before?'_

" _Not in public! Up in Kamchatka, it's never that warm! It's a little embarrassing.'_

 _'Having all the guys ogling you?'_ Shinji asked teasingly. It was only after he said it that he realized how out of character it was for him. But it's not like HE would ever be 'ogling' or doing anything else inappropriate. Plus, even if he said stuff like this, nobody except Inia would ever know about it.

 _'Um, no. It's just embarrassing.'_ Inia replied a little subdued.

"Did you hear? The class trip is going to be to Okinawa! Beaches, here I come!" Asuka burst into Shinji's room and pumped her fist.

 _'Um, I got to go. Asuka's here,'_ Shinji sent.

 _'Fine. You do that.'_ came the sulky response from Inia, _'I'm going to go hang out with Yuuya.'_

 _'Wait. What? Are you upset? I thought you wanted me to make more friends in real life.'_

"Come on, Baka, you have to go shopping with me! I need a new swimsuit!" Asuka interrupted Shinji, pulling his SDAT headphones off of his head. By the time Shinji oriented himself, Inia had disconnected.

Shinji sat up, "Ok, Ok. Why do you need me to go with you?"

"To carry my stuff, duh!" Asuka glanced at the SDAT in her hand, "What are you listening to all the time, anyway?" She held it up to her, then with a puzzled glance, turned the tape on. "You like classical?"

"Um, yeah?" Shinji replied tentatively, sounding surprisingly like Inia had a moment ago. "I like the precision and accuracy of the sound."

"You know that classical music can represented by a mathematical formula? I listened to a lecture on the math of music. A college lecture."

"You were in college?" Shinji asked, feeling somewhat intimidated. He had originally gotten a sense that Asuka was like he had been, completely isolated and cut off from all other people, but the more he knew her, the more that seemed like it was a mistaken impression. She was beautiful, and she was social, and now it sounded like she was a genius. What did she need his help for?

"Of course not, Baka. I'm fifteen. I attended lectures over the Internet. Now come on and get up." Asuka paused, "Do you have swim trunks and stuff? You can take a few minute to get you junk while we shop as well." She volunteered magnanimously.

Shinji sighed, ' _Should I invite Kensuke and Toji?_ ' He tried to visualize how that would go, which quickly answered his question. _'Nope'_. The guys were nice and all, but they really weren't very mature. Not that he thought of himself as being anything special, but fighting for his life and the life of all humanity changed you. And seeing Inia's perspective on her own world was… sobering.

"So… when do we go?"

"As soon as Kaji arrives!"

/\ PoC /\

Asuka, Kaji and Shinji shopped. To be more accurate, Asuka shopped (when she wasn't hanging onto Kaji's arm, alternating between glancing adoringly at the older man and sneaking glances at Shinji, to see how he was reacting), while Shinji and Kaji walked along with identical long suffering expressions.

"I'm going to head over to the men's section and see if I can find myself a pair of trunks." Shinji volunteered. It came out as more of a question than a statement. Asuka had him completely cowed.

"So I will have to model my swimsuits just for Kaji in that case," Asuka declared with a sly smile.

"No, princess. I'm going to head over with Shinji to make sure he doesn't get ripped off. He's never been shopping on his own before, after all."

The two guys walked off as Asuka stamped her foot and huffed in annoyance.

"So, you like Asuka? I'll admit, she can be a handful, but she's a good kid at heart," Kaji asked nonchalantly.

"Um." Shinji considered how to reply. "I don't think I _like her_ like her, but she seems like she really needs a friend, but she's always pushing people away, so I thought I should try to stick it out."

Kaji turned to regard the younger man. "I don't know how to respond to that. That was a very mature thing to say. Hell. I think you may be more responsible than I am."

Shinji blushed up to his ears from the praise. "It's nothing. It's just a.. a friend did the same for me."

"Are you talking about Misato? She's always been pretty impulsive, but she's always been a good judge of character. Except when it came to me."

"What do you mean?" Shinji asked as he tried to find the least garish pair of swim trunks. They all seemed to be either florescent blue and green Hawaiian print… things, or speedos that were so small that they wouldn't fit a Ken doll.

"Well, I don't know if she mentioned it, but we used to date back in college. We got pretty serious, but then I panicked and ran out on her, and that was the end of that." Kaji shrugged before snagging a pair of trunks from a back rack and tossing them to Shinji, "Here you go – they're on clearance because they are last years fashion."

Shinji sighed in relief - they were a much more muted royal blue.

/\ PoC /\

"What do you mean, we can't go on the class trip?!" Asuka roared, "The class trip is the high point of the Japanese school calendar. It is the only thing that makes your sucky school worth attending!" She turned to Shinji who was still holding the shopping bags. The two teens had just walked back into the apartment after their shopping trip. "Say something, Third!"

"Um, I was half way expecting this?"

"I know you kids want to go, but with the risk of an Angel attack, I can't justify having you so far from base. And beside, you could both use the time to catch up on your homework." She held up two report cards, both with unflattering quantities of red ink.

Asuka turned to Shinji, "And you are just going to accept this? Be a man, for once!"

Shinji stood up straighter at Asuka's exhortations and replied in his best confident voice, "It is our responsibility to remain in Tokyo-3."

"Arghh!" Asuka threw up her hands and stormed off into her room.

Shinji followed timidly, "Um, Asuka, do you want your swim suit?" He held out the garment in question between two fingers towards the door. So that he wouldn't be in any way associated with it. Asuka's door slid open, an arm snagged the swimsuit and immediately tossed it back into Shinji's face. The door slammed shut again.

Shinji stood, at a loss as to what to do, with feminine garments draped over his body.

"I'll be in my room." Shinji shuffled towards his safe space. Misato bemusedly plucked the garments from him as he passed by.

/\ PoC /\

Once safely ensconced in his bed, the SDAT on his ears, he reached out to Inia, _'Inia? I need a little advice. I think Asuka is insane._ ' when he got no reply, he sighed and took off his SDAT. This sometimes happened – if Inia was busy, she wouldn't be listening for his call.

It was actually surprising how often he was able to connect with her, given that she had to be listening for him and then initiate the connection. She was really a very nice girl to put that much effort in for his benefit. He was lucky (more than lucky) to have a friend like her.

But... 'W _ell, I have no clue how to deal with Asuka. And there isn't anybody I can really ask.'_ His friends were going to be as clueless as he was, if not worse, and he would rather die than ask Misato something like that.

/\ PoC /\

All this is why, after seeing off his friends off on Friday, Shinji was in his room studying when Misato barged in. "Hey, Shinji. Grab your swimsuit I'm taking all three plots to the school pool. I know it's not Okinawa, but you'll have it all to yourselves!"

"I don't .."

"You can do homework afterwards!" Misato really hated being the voice of authority and responsibility for the pilots. She knew that they had to study and do well in school, but they already had so much pressure on them that she didn't want to be the one to add more. So she tried to come up with SOMETHING she could offer them.

Shinji was still standing, ambivalent when, Asuka walked by and grabbed his arm.

Shinji flinched, but Asuka just cheerfully proclaimed, "come on, baka, it will be fun!"

 _'Is she bipolar or something? I thought she was angry with me.'_ But Shinji allowed himself to be dragged along.

Once at the pool, he safely ensconced himself at one of the tables, spreading his homework out in front of him. Several minutes later, Asuka strutted out of the women's changing room, followed momentarily by Rei. "Hey, you should get into your swim trunks."

"Why? I'm not going swimming." Shinji replied mulishly.

"Jeez. If you're so worried about your grades, I'll tutor you later. You know I'm good for it." Asuka paused when Shinji didn't budge. "So what are you studying?" She leaned over him, bringing her scantily clad body closer than Shinji was comfortable with.

"Uhm, it's physics."

"Right I see. Thermal expansion. So it's simple: stuff expands when its heated, and shrinks when it's cooled." Asuka paused and leaned in towards Shinji again, asking, "Do you think my breasts will expand if I get hot?"

Shinji sputtered "I-I wouldn't know anything about that!"

Asuka frowned at his flustered response. It made her feel awkward, like she was doing something inappropriate.

Shinji glanced over at Rei, looking for help, but the stoic girl had just walked into the pool, and wasn't going to come to his rescue.

"So what, you got a thing for Rei? You should go swim with her, then. God knows that's her only hobby." Asuka refused to admit defeat.

"I.. I don't know how to swim." Shinji finally admitted, staring fixedly at his homework.

"Seriously?"

"Um, yeah. I grew up inland, and I never went to the pool."

A huge smile spread across Asuka's face, at the realization that the mighty Shinji was completely her inferior in this one area. "Come on, then! Get a kick board and I'll teach you how to swim!"

Shinji had just stood up when he got hammered by a wordless surge of panic and a sense of drowning. He fell back down into his chair, his pulse racing as he desperately gulped air.

"Hey, are you ok? I didn't mean to traumatize you..." Asuka began when all three phones went of. The next angel had been found.

/\ PoC /\

"We have detected what may be an angel still in some sort of chrysalis stage. That's the good news. The bad news is that it is in the magma chamber of an active volcano." Misato was briefing the pilots in a conference room at NERV before setting out to the site. "The pilot for this mission will be..."

"I'll do it!" Asuka interrupted.

"I was going to say Asuka." Misato concluded, "Unit 02 will have to be loaded with type D equipment." Misato showed a picture of what looked like a cross between a 19th century diving suit and a fat suit designed for an Evangelion.

"What? That? No!"

"Sorry Asuka, Unit 02 is the only one rated for that equipment."

"I could pilot Unit 02, if you want," Shinji quickly interrupted.

"Absolutely not!" Asuka shook her head so hard that her entire body twisted. "I was just put off by the aesthetics. I got this." She glanced over at Shinji, but the boy was not paying attention to her.

 _'Inia_ ' Shinji tried again. There was no response. He was certain that the panic had come from Inia. He wished that there was something he could do. But he couldn't even find out if there was anything wrong in the first place. He hated feeling this powerless . It was a new experience: previously, there was nothing he really wanted to do. Now for the first time, he did, but there was literally nothing he could do.

"Hey, baka, pay attention." Asuka nudged Shinji, as Misato was explaining that he would be on standby, above the mouth of the volcano, in case he had to assist.

"Assist with what?"

"If the Angel becomes active, Asuka may need help in destroying it."

"I won't." Asuka began when Shinji interrupted, "You can count on me!" _'I'm not useless.'_

Misato gave Shinji a look at his unexpected vehemence. "I know I can. Let's go."

/\ PoC /\

"Its hot here!" Asuka complained as she climbed into her entry plug.

"That's why you have the type D equipment," Ritsuko replied without looking up from her tablet.

"Remember, if anything goes wrong with the capture, destroy the Angel. Don't mess around." Misato reminded before turning to her other charge. "Shinji, you ready?" Unit 01 was crouching in a makeshift docking cage.

"Yes ma'am." Shinji was on edge. All this waiting with nothing to do was in some ways harder than actually going out and fighting an Angel.

 _'Inia?'_

Nothing. This wasn't typical. She was usually half listening for him. Well, there was their usual 'rendezvous' this evening. But if she missed that... Shinji's stomach roiled.

Meanwhile, Asuka was being lowered into the volcano by a giant winch. A series of coolant pipes ran up from the type D equipment to help control the temperature rise.

"I hope you packed your swimsuit. It's going to get hot," Ritsuko quipped, but nobody replied, as the tension was too high.

"Present depth 170 meter. Speed of descending 20." Came Asuka's voice over the radio, "It's all good, so far, but visibility is zero. I am switching to sonar tomography." There was a moments pause, "That's better, but the range is limited to 120m"

Up in the trailer that housed the temporary control room, Maya continued to read out the depth: "down to 400, 450, 500, 550, 600, 650."

"We're approaching the target depth – 1300m. That's the test limit for the type D."

"I'm not seeing anything."

"The magma flow is faster than expected – it could have swept the chrysalis further down."

"Lower her down another 100 meter." Misato commanded.

"Are you certain?" Makoto asked.

"We have a safety margin. But do it quick – the longer the Evangelion is down that far, the higher the risk."

"I'm good," added Asuka, "Go ahead and drop me!"

Shinji was certain that last part was false bravado.

"I see it!" Asuka called out. "Deploying electromagnetic cage. And.. Got it! Operation is a success!"

"Begin accent." Misato commanded.

"Going up!" "1200 meter, 1000, 900..."

"That was easier than expected..oh, no!" There was the sound of hurried activity, and the monitors in the control trailer started to oscillate.

"Asuka?" Misato called out.

"Its hatched, rupturing the cage!" Asuka called out, and then there was silence as the telemetry from unit 02 went all over the place.

Unit 01 moved out of the docking cage and tensed up at the edge of the magma crater. Shinji's stomach was clenched as he waited. Everything was going wrong. First Inia, now Asuka, everybody he cared about.

"Asuka? Status report?" Misato called down.

"I'm trying to kill it, but my knife keeps skidding across it's skin. It's like the sixth angel."

"The cooler temperature as she rose must have caused it to hatch," Ritsuko muttered.

"That's it!" The telemetry from unit 02 spiked again, and the coolant pressure dropped to zero in line 2. "Got you! It's dead, I sprayed it with coolant to weaken the armor and then stabbed it. Now get me out of here before I cook."

"Misato," Shigeru called out from where he was stationed by the winch, "the tow cable is separating - it must have gotten damaged by the Angel."

"Hold on Asuka, we'll get you up."

"800 meters, 700."

The cable gave a sudden jerk "We've lost contact with unit 02!"

Shinji dived in. He couldn't see anything more than a few feet away as he pushed himself down along the cable. As he reached the frayed end, he still couldn't see unit 02, but he could feel panic welling up from below him. He grabbed the end of the cable and flailed around blindly, reaching for the source of the emotion.

There! He had something. He yanked on the cable, intending to pull the both of them up, somehow, but Misato must have taken the yank as a signal to winch him up, as the cable began to spool up quickly.

/\ PoC /\

"Don't you ever do something like that again without orders!" Misato spoke to the two pilots, "But good work. Both of you. Go get changed, and I will see if I can get it so that we spend the night down at the hot springs instead of the temporary bivouacs up here. Dismissed."

"Yes, ma'am!"

As Shinji turned to head to the changing room, Asuka grabbed his arm, "Um.. thanks." She paused, but didn't release Shinji, "You're not the sort of person I thought you would be. You're not arrogant or anything, and.. I just want to say that.. thanks!" She quickly let go of Shinji's hand and marched off to the woman's changing room.

/\ PoC /\

As Misato and Asuka relaxed on the women's side of the hot spring, Shinji soaked on his, still tense ' _Inia?'_

Again nothing.

His stomach roiled. He didn't want her to be dead. He knew that she was a soldier, and that she could die any time. For that matter, so could he. But he was hoping that things would stay like they had been. His life had improved so much since last summer.

 _'Shinji?'_ It was Inia.

"Yeah!" He cried jubilantly, _'Are you ok?'_

"Shinji? You ok?" Misato called from the other side of the wall.

"Yes, I just slipped." Shinji replied before going back to his other conversation, ' _when you didn't communicate with me for an entire day, I was worried that something had happened to you.'_

 _'No. It's just we had a paddle boat race, and I fell into the water. I.. don't swim very well, so I panicked, and then..'_ Came the embarrassed admission.

 _'I can't swim either,'_ Shinji interrupted. _'It's kind of embarrassing, as both of the other pilots are really good swimmers, and I don't like to even go in more than waist deep.'_

 _'Oh.'_ Inia sounded relieved. ' _You're not just saying that to make me feel better?'_

 _'Of course not. I wouldn't lie to you.'_ And it was true. It was part of what made their relationship work. Since there was absolutely zero chance of the two of them ever meeting face to face (or even having a mutual acquaintance), he could say things to her that he would never dream of revealing to anybody else. He could forget that he was a socially awkward fifteen year old school boy, and that she was a statuesque 19 year old fighter pilot.

 _'Well, I feel better. That's kind of why I didn't contact you for so long.'_ Inia gathered herself, and when she started talking again, she sounded like her usual self confident self. ' _We have just one more day of leave, and then we're heading up to Kamchatka for some special weapons test. But the flight commanders are organizing a photo shoot for the last day, for the PR department!"_

 _'So?'_

" _So they will us modeling in our swim suits!_ ' Inia sounded incensed.

 _'You'll do fine. You'll probably first prize,'_ Shinji reassured, ' _Actually, It's too bad I can't see that.'_

There was a pause, ' _Well, you can ogle that Asuka girl. You said she's pretty.'_ Now it was Shinji's turn to be quiet, ' _Shinji?'_

 _'Umm,'_ Shinji blushed beet red, ' _We're kind of at a hot springs right now._ '

 _'Oh.. Yui – she's the captain of the international Argos flight - mentioned that Japanese like to do that naked. So you're sitting naked in a pool of hot water, and the girl you like is just a few feet away, on the other side of a thin wall?"_ she teased.

 _'Stop! No! It's not like that! It's not that I like her. I'm just helping her out. And Misato is over there with her as well.'_

 _'Oh, the pervy older woman?'_

 _'She's not pervy. She's just a slob. And she's my commanding officer.'_ Shinji sank down in embarrassment so that only his face was out of the water.

 _'And if you don't like Asuka, why are you helping her so much? You aren't doing the same for Rei.'_ Shinji didn't reply. Because, if he was going to be honest with himself, part of the reason was the way his father gave special treatment to Rei. ' _Beside, there's nothing wrong with liking a girl, as long as she's nice.'_

 _'I am not certain if Asuka qualifies,'_ At this point Shinji heard rustling from the other side of the wall.

"Hey, Shinji, did you fall asleep over there? We're leaving now." Misato called.

"Are you drowning? Do we need to come over there for a search and rescue?" Asuka added.

 _'I got to go',_ Shinji interrupted Inia, "I'm coming. I'm fine". But he kept thinking about what Inia had said.


	6. Chapter 6

"Why did you invite her along?" Asuka demanded. The three pilots were walking through the local mall - Shinji had invited the other two to go to the ice cream shop with him. An invitation he was now regretting.

"I thought that we should get to know each other a little. You know. Socially."

"Socializing is not beneficial." Rei replied.

"So go home then. You are not required here," Asuka retorted.

"I find that I desire ice cream. That is strange. Until you spoke, I had no interest in acquiring such an over-rich delicacy," Rei mused.

"Uhm, yeah, lets try to get along?" Shinji made a placating gesture as he pushed open the door to the ice cream parlor.

"If you desired tranquility, then inviting the Second Child was a poor decision."

"Hey, at least I have a pulse," shot back Asuka.

Shinji meekly went to get in line. He was about to ask what flavors the girls wanted, but then decided that would not be a safe line of inquiry.

"BAM"

"BAM"

"BAM"

Somebody was pounding on the storefront window - it was Toji, and now he was pointing at him. Shinji could just hear his muted voice as he called out to Kensuke "Dude! Look at that! Shin-man's on a date with both Fire & Ice!"

Asuka and Rei stopped their argument and slowly rotated to face Toji, "hold my spot, First. I need to talk to a certain stooge."

Toji's eyes got really big as he saw Asuka storming towards him, but he was too much of a man to run away.

Which is why he was still there when Asuka tore into him. Shinji couldn't hear all of it, but it involved phrases like: "are you a child?" and "disturbing the peace" and "harassment". Asuka soon had an audience for her beat down of Toji, who was really not very skilled in the Verbal Arts.

"Can I help you?" Shinji turned to find that he was at the head of the line.

"Probably not. But I'll take a small vanilla cone."

/\ PoC /\

"So tell me again, why are you friends with those two stooges?" Asuka asked as she dug into her mini sundae - one scoop cherry, one scoop chocolate. Hot butterscotch (NOT Caramel), nuts, (very) whipped cream and a cherry on the side (not on top).

"Kensuke is nice." Shinji's defense sounded weak even to himself. The three pilots were sitting at a picnic table on a grassy field behind he mall.

"I have caught him filming me as I swam on four occasions in the past week alone," replied Rei.

"He just needs a girlfriend."

"Don't even think about setting him up with me, Baka! Maybe Rei will consent to go out with him."

"I wasn't going to! He's my friend. I don't want to find him buried in a shallow grave somewhere."

Asuka froze as she considered what Shinji had said. For that matter, so did Shinji, _'Oh, this is going to hurt.'_ He instinctively closed his eyes. But then Asuka roared with laughter.

"I would not consent to go out with Kensuke," Rei replied, obviously still a few topics behind.

Asuka snorted, "First time you said anything that I agree with. Both of the stooges are, well stooges. Who would want to date them?"

"Your friend Hikari is interested in Toji," Rei corrected.

"Wait, what? Are you kidding me?"

Shinji watched as the conversation morphed into a weird version of 'girl talk'. He wasn't certain if this was any better than the screaming and threatening from before.

/\ PoC /\

"Today, in place of the usual harmonics tests, I want to try multi-syncing." Misato was standing in front of the three pilots, who were already dressed in their plug suits. "This is something that shouldn't be possible, but a few weeks ago, when Shinji and Asuka were both piloting Unit 02, they managed to not only pull it off, but they had a better than usual sync score. So we will first try to duplicate the results in a controlled environment. So Shinji, Asuka, you're first. We're going to use the actual Evangelion, in case there is some idiosyncrasy that is not present in our test pugs."

The two teens climbed into the entry plug. "Oh, I shouldn't have had all that ice cream," Asuka moaned, glancing nervously at Shinji, who was far too close. The problem was that the cockpit was designed for only one person. Only the cockpit in Unit 01 was larger (as it was designed for testing), and even then it was only a slight increase.

"Ok, you two are doing great. Activate the Evangelion and try to walk it around the room." Misato keyed off the radio, turning to Ritsuko, "they are doing better than great: I half-way expected Asuka to throw a screaming fit about letting Shinji into her Eva."

"Hmm. The two of them seem to be getting along pretty well." Ritsuko kept typing, not really paying attention to the conversation.

"Yeah. Shinji still has moments where he just withdraws, sitting with his SDAT and not doing anything, but he's been surprisingly social lately. And he deals well with Asuka's crazy. He's a lot more mature than I would have thought."

Inside the Eva, Asuka was laying down the law. "You're here to think good thoughts to help me sync with Unit 02. You don't touch anything, especially not me. No 'accidental' groping. Got it, third?"

"Yes, ma'am," Shinji was floating behind Asuka like some sort of specter.

Some few minutes later, Misato called a halt to the exercise. "Ok. Not as good as against the sixth angel, but better than we believed would happen. Shinji, your out, Rei, you're in.

And the Evangelion didn't move.

By the end of the day, they had determined that Shinji was the special sauce. With him, the combined sync score rose a few percentage point. It didn't matter which Evangelion they were in. But if the other two pilots tried to work together, the sync rate halved.

"Well, that sucks," Misato grumbled. She though she had discovered an interesting new facet of the Evangelion, but it now looked like it was an aberration. Possibly because Shinji was so mellow and easy to get along with.

"No, we can still benefit from it. I am going to have a second pilot seat installed in Unit 01, in case one of the Evangelions is disabled, like Unit 00 was until recently. That way we can have the extra pilot assist Shinji."

/\ PoC /\

For Shinji, the days dropped into a routine of school and then going to NERV for whatever training Misato dreamed up (or sometimes Ritsuko's favorite tests - he wasn't certain if those had anything to do with making him a better pilot, or if the blond scientist was just abusing her privileges to get data and torture people). After school, he often walked together with Asuka and Rei, though they did not make another foray to the ice cream shop. Shinji wasn't brave enough.

Shinji spent his evening after dinner chatting with Inia, but it was harder to find time. He did hear about her adventures in Kamchatka, where they had live fire tests with BETA.

 _'That particle beam weapon sounds really cool,'_ Shinji gushed after Inia described a close call with a swarm of BETA, which Yuuya had ended up obliterating single-handedly using a prototype beam weapon. ' _The other thing that would be cool is the battery pack from it. I don't know what you guys use for batteries, but it seems like it's a lot more advanced than our Evangelions – we have only 5 minutes of power.'_

 _'It's not a battery – it's a micro reactor. We're not allowed to operate in areas with lots of people for that reason, but usually, where you have BETA, you don't have any people, except what the BETA pooped out.'_

 _'Huh. Well, not having to worry about running out of power is still a good thing.'_

/\ PoC /\

Swipe.

No response

"Hey, my card doesn't work" Asuka looked puzzled as the door to the NERV entrance didn't open. "Shinji, try yours."

As Shinji waved is card before the sensor, Rei calmly remarked, "the power is off."

"So how do we get to our sync testing! Ritsuko said she had new A-10 connectors for us." Asuka tried her cell phone, but it was dead too.

"Maybe we should just go home?" Shinji asked.

Rei pulled a small pamphlet from her backpack, "according to the NERV emergency response manual, we are supposed to report to the control room if we ever lose contact with HQ."

"Oh, look at who's the nerd now!" Asuka grimaced.

"I though you said you had a college degree." Shinji interrupted,

"I took college classes. I did not get a degree, otherwise, I obviously wouldn't still be in secondary school." Asuka replied haughtily, "and beside, that was different. That was me."

"And everything you do is perfect in every way?" Shinji quipped.

"Duh." Asuka smirked, glancing at Shinji to see if he was with the program.

Rei ignored the byplay, apparently filing it under 'stupid teenage interactions I don't need to know about' and headed over to a panel on the left side of the door. "According to the notation here, this is a manual override for the door."

"Shinji, open it." Asuka commanded. At the boy's surprised look, she added, "Be a man."

With a sigh Shinji opened the panel to reveal a large crank hidden inside. With another sigh he began to turn it.

/\ PoC /\

"So which way now, oh imperious leader?" Shinji asked.

"What, you think you can do better?" Asuka demanded.

"What, no.." Shinji cringed back from her angry response, "I was just joking."

"Well, we need to find the emergency stairs to get down to the command center."

"There are no stairs in this section," Rei interjected calmly from behind the bickering teens.

"What?" Asuka turned in surprise, "Have you memorized the layout of NERV?"

"Yes."

"You mean you haven't? You have had several weeks here already." Shinji quickly interrupted before Asuka could say anything.

"Don't give me that, Third. I know for a fact that you aren't smart enough to have memorized the floor plan. " Asuka scowled, "Fine. Second, lead the way. But if you get us lost, I'm going to blame you."

Rei nodded, "We need to go through the maintenance access shaft to a more central section. Here," she pointed to what looked like a grate over a ventilation shaft. "Through there."

"Third, open it!" Asuka commanded.

"What, am I your slave?" Shinji was starting to get a little irritated with Asuka's attitude. He knew she didn't handle stress well, but she was moving from being snippy to really obnoxious.

"Sorry." She didn't sound sorry, "Can you get it open?"

"Give me your ID card." Shinji took Asuka's ID card and used the edge as a screw driver to unscrew the grate from the access tunnel.

"Why couldn't you use your ID for that?"

"I didn't want to destroy it."

With an exasperated sigh, Asuka climbed in first, taking the lead again, with Rei following, and Shinji bringing up the rear.

"Um, shouldn't Rei be in the lead, since she actually knows where we are going?"

"Shut up, Shinji." Asuka didn't sound teasing anymore – she had had her fill of bantering. It was emotionally draining not yelling at Shinji every time he disagreed with her.

The three teens crawled down the access tunnel. It was obviously not intended for regular use, being just three feet by three feet. "Rei, which way?"

There was a pause, "we have to go either left or right."

"Oh, gee that's useful, First. I was so considering trying to tunnel through the steel wall with my teeth. I thought you had the map memorized."

"I do, but I have gotten turned around, and I am not certain where WE are on the map."

"Go left," Shinji volunteered, just to get them moving.

"Fine." Asuka turned right.

/\ PoC /\

"See, I was right." Asuka crawled out of the shaft into the small foyer area. "And that must be the door to the stair!" Asuka pulled it open.

To come face to eyeball with an Angel.

"Heilige Scheiße!" she slammed the door, "Back into the tunnel! Back into the tunnel!"

This time, Shinji ended up in the lead as he had been the last one out.

/\ PoC /\

"Well, at least that pervert didn't get the chance to look up our skirts," Asuka proclaimed loudly, as the trio of pilots stood waiting for orders. They had finally arrived at command, to find it a hive of activity as the technicians tried to manually prepare the Evangelions for launch.

Shinji cringed as several techs cast curious glances at Asuka.

"What's important is that you arrived promptly. Well done," vice commander Fuyutsuki commended them. "Once the Evangelions are ready, you will have to manually climb up to engage the Angel. You will go up elevator shaft 4, as that is closest to where we think the angel is. With the battery packs, you will have only 5 minutes of activity." Nobody was certain where Misato was – she had still not arrived, and there was nobody else with military experience present, so the vice commander had taken the unusual step of taking tactical command.

 _'It would be nice if we had the nuclear reactors from Inia's world,'_ Shinji mused. He missed part of the briefing, but vice commander was just killing time until the Evangelions were ready anyways – without power, nobody knew exactly what the capabilities of this Angel were, or where exactly it was. The one positive in this whole situation was that the Angel was slow moving.

"Ok, gentlemen. It is time. Get in your entry plugs." It was a good thing that the Vice Commander usually stood in the background and let other people do the talking. He really did not inspire confidence with his dry academic persona.

As Shinji's entry plug was sealed into the Eva, he was glad of the chats he had had with Inia about what all the systems on his control panel were. He flipped through, turning off anything that required feedback from HQ to operate, and he turned the life support down to minimal temperature regulation.

 _'I should probably tell the others to do the same,'_ Shinji frowned. Working with others (talking with others) still didn't come naturally to him.

"Launch!" Maya commanded.

They did. Sort of. The Evangelions turned and began the long climb to the surface. Elevator 4 was off to one side, so after a nerve wracking climb 500 meters up the main launch wall, they finally entered into a cross shaft.

"I think I see it!" Asuka said as her Evangelion peered around the corner, up along elevator 4. "That's one of it's legs!" Unit Two scrambled up into the shaft and began to climb, using her progressive knives as pitons, punching them into the side of the shaft and pulling herself up on them.

"Asuka, we should coordinate our attacks." Shinji followed, with Rei brining up the rear. Which is when the Angel shifted sideways, revealing a giant eye set into its underside. And the eye began to ooze acid.

"Ahh!" Asuka took the full brunt of the attack, screaming in pain. Her Evangelion plummeted towards Eva 01. Shinji managed to just catch the red behemoth, but at the cost of dropping his pallet rifle. And the acid poured over Unit 01.

As the acid began to etch itself into his consciousness, he swung them both down, back into the cross tunnel. Rei had ducked into the other side of the horizontal tunnel. Unit 00 was also the only one still armed with a rifle.

"Oh, sh.. that hurt!" Shinji gasped, "you ok, Asuka?"

"Bitch and moan later. Lets take that SOB out first!" Asuka snarled, "We need to get close enough to that thing to cancel out the AT field, so that we can destroy it. I think that eye thing is the core."

"It would match what we have seen before," Rei acknowledged.

Asuka ignored the comment, "But the Evangelion that gets the killing shot doesn't have to be the one that cancels out the AT field," she continued thinking out loud.

"So, teamwork?" Shinji asked.

"Teamwork," Asuka replied, checking her battery timer. A little over a minute left. "You and I will climb up, while Rei waits below. As soon as one of us is high enough to cancel out the AT field, she pops out of her little burrow and blows that SOB away. On the count of 3."

"1.. 2.. 3!"

The two Evangelions leaped out to opposite sides of the shaft and began climbing hand over hand. Shinji grunted as the strain was translated to his actual arms. _'I can do this.'_

"AAGH!" he screamed, the acid poured down on him as the Angel changed position.

But now Asuka scampered up, taking advantage of the Angels distraction. She was almost to withing range when it shifted back to her side again, pouring acid over unit 02.

As soon he was free of the toxic rain, Shinji began to climb. He glanced at his battery timer. 0:00:57

"Now! Rei, now!' He hugged the Eva to the side of the shaft as Unit 00 swung out into the middle of the space and opened fire.

BRADDA BRADDA BRADDA.

The huge eye shattered.

/\ PoC /\

 _'That was so cool. We actually managed to work together.'_ Shinji was in his locker room. He had already changed into his civvies, and he was now gushing to Inia, _'and Asuka is a pretty good tactician'_. Shinji was really happy to be working as part of a team. It made fighting the Angels a lot less scary.

 _'Yeah, I know what you mean._ ' Inia sent back, ' _My TSF is one of the few models that takes two pilots, and I feel bad for those poor guys stuck in the single seaters. It's so much more stressful. When I am in my Su-37UB Terminator, I leave the piloting to Cryska, and I just handle the gunnery.'_

"Hey, Baka. Are you wanking off in there?" Asuka pounded on the door, "Come out and let's go get something to eat!"

 _'I gotta go – Asuka is calling me to go eat.'_

 _'Like... A date?'_

 _'I don't... maybe.'_ Shinji grabbed his shoes and cut the connection to Inia, "coming."

/\ PoC /\

"So they finally found Misato – she was stuck in an elevator with Kaji this whole time." Asuka said around a mouthful of sandwich. The two of them were having dinner at the NERV cafeteria. So, not a date. The room was still almost empty as most of the staff was cleaning up from the attack.

"You seem to be ok with that." Shinji was surprised. Typically, whenever Kaji flirted with Misato, Asuka would lose it. Or at the very least, steam would come blowing out of her ears.

"Huh. Yeah," Asuka replied, a little surprised herself. "I guess I'm just really happy with how we performed, and nothing is going to 'harsh my mellow', as my gran used to say."

"So why not invite Rei? She contributed as much as we did."

Asuka waved her hand dismissively, "She wouldn't want to be here." So.. maybe a date? "After all, she's never interested in talking about how well my plans went of!" Not a date.

Shinji nodded, "well, I have to admit that it worked perfectly, which is pretty rare."

Asuka's eyes narrowed ,"What do you mean? Are you implying that my plans usually crash and burn?" Asuka saw no need to be reminded of past failures during her moment in the sun.

"No, nothing like that," Shinji cowered back, "I just meant that plans rarely survive contact with the enemy. A friend told me that."

"Well, that's true. I guess even Kensuke is right sometimes."

Shinji saw no need to correct her, "why do you dislike Toji and Kensuke so much?"

"Seriously? You ask what I have against 'drop trou' Toji?"

Shinji cringed, "Uh, yeah. I forgot. He's a little immature."

"And Kensuke.. he has the bad taste to hang out the big doofus."

"Well, I hang out with the big doofus too." Shinji protested.

Asuka was quiet, eating her sandwich, before finally replying quietly "Yeah, but you treat me like a person, not just a bunch of measurements. Not just a number."


	7. Chapter 7

_'Shinji!'_

"Wha?" Shinji jerked out a sound sleep to the sound of a girl crying. He glanced around his darkened room – it was dark. Shinji finally processed that it was 3 in the morning, and the room was empty save for him.

Yet the weeping was still loud and clear.

Finally, Shinji realized that it was all in his head

" _Inia? Are you ok?'_

 _'She died,'_ his imaginary friend sobbed, _'they just shot her.'_

 _'Cryska?'_ Shinji asked tremulously.

 _'No, it was Natalie. She was one of the cooks at the Alaska base.'_ Inia started to get herself under control. ' _She was always so cheerful and friendly. We always joked around. And then.. the_ _Refugee Liberation Front staged an attack – they are a terrorist organization – and they attacked the base. We fought them off, but they killed Natalie,'_ Inia sniffled some more.

 _'I'm really sorry. I wish I could be there to help.''_ Shinji considered what sort of help somebody like him could offer. Not much really, _'I could at least give you a hug.'_

 _'I'm hugging my teddy bear. I'll pretend that its you.'_ Inia sniffled, _'I.. So many of my friends have died. First at the laboratory. Then out on the front lines. But I thought somebody like Natalie was safe. That she would always be there for me. She should have outlived me.'_

Shinji pulled himself up into a sitting position on his futon, arranging the blankets comfortably. He was going to be here a while. This wasn't the first time Inia had called him in the middle of the night, but she sounded a lot worse than ever before.

' _I wish you were here_ ,' Inia sobbed, _'no, I don't. Then you would have to deal with the BETA as well.'_

 _'I'm not certain if having the Angels is any better.'_

 _'It's better. At least you don't have to watch them eat people. And no matter what we do, it's never enough. It's just a matter of time. The BETA control most of Asia. Europe is barely holding on. Nobody knows what is going on in Africa. We're losing. It's just a matter of time before those fucking monsters eat all of the people.'_

Shinji was shocked to hear Inia swear. ' _What about that rail gun that you developed? All it takes is for your scientist to come up with a new weapon, and you'll be able to stop them, to push them back.'_

 _'Maybe._ ' Inia sounded a little less depressed.

 _'Look, pretty soon every TSF will come equipped with a rail gun, and then you will be able to hold your own._ _'_

 _'There are still so many of them. And they breed , or reproduce, or whatever they do, too fast.'_

 _'Well, I should probably say thank you, for all of your advice on how to deal with Asuka.'_ Shinji was wracking his brains on how to cheer Inia up. It wasn't something he had any talent at, but she sounded really distraught.

 _'What, she asked you to reprodu_ ce?' Inia was able to tease Shinji, even in her current state, ' _Is that what made you think of it?'_

 _'NO! No, I mean we just had lunch together. In the cafeteria. But we talked, and it was very.. normal.'_

 _'Normal is good,'_ Inia commented sleepily.

 _'Yes. Normal is good.'_

There was a pause before Inia finally replied, _'Good night, Shinji. Thank you._ '

Shinji took a while to fall asleep. As much as the Angels terrified him, knowing that Inia had it so much worse made facing them more manageable.

/\ PoC /\

"Dude, It's pouring out there!" Toji tried to shake the water off of his cloths, "And it was so nice this morning, too."

"Yeah, the weather has been pretty crazy this year." Shinji opened the door to the apartment, "Keep it down, guys, Misato has been working nights, so she may be asleep." Given how little he had slept last night, a nap seemed like a good idea to Shinji as well.

"What are you doing here? Are you losers stalking me?" Asuka opened her door and struck a pose. At Shinji's look, she added, "oh, don't worry. Misato's awake."

As her name was spoken, Misato walked in. She was apparently just on her way to work, as she was in uniform, instead of her 'comfortable' clothes (which made Toji sigh in disappointment).

"Welcome home Shinji. Don't forget that the two of you have a harmonics test this afternoon."

"Ok."

"Oh, uh, congratulations!" Kensuke said, pointing to Misato's collar.

"What? Oh?" Light dawned on Shinji as he noticed her rank insignia had been replaced by a gold star, "Congratulations!"

"We should have a party!" Kensuke declared.

"Yeah," Toji added, "We can do it here!"

As Asuka and Shinji both looked scandalized at the two boys taking over, Misato nodded "That would be great!"

/\ PoC /\

The three pilots hung suspend in tubes of LCL in a cavernous room, with the only illumination coming from a handful of overhead lights and the screens of the computers running the experiments. Cables were strewn all over the floor, running from the tubes to the computers. Maya and Ritsuko were at their workstation, adjusting parameters, the light from the displays giving them a pallid, unhealthy complexion. It was a typical Tuesday afternoon.

"So, how does it look?" Misato asked as she walked into the lab.

"Pretty good. Rei is holding steady, while the other two keep inching up. Today, for the first time, Shinji's score exceeded Asuka's."

"But Rei is not improving?" Misato sighed, "well, I guess that's the best we're going to get. She still performs more than adequately out in the field, even if her Eva is a little sluggish."

"I suspect it would be that way even if her sync score was higher, Ma'am." Maya interrupted, "Her unit is the prototype, after all."

"I guess so. Any progress on adding that second command seat to Unit 01?"

"Yup! We put it in tandem, almost elbow to elbow" Maya chirped, "Unit 01 isn't that big, after all."

"I am surprised the commander okay-ed it – we had to scrap the dummy plug system," Ritsuko added. She wasn't certain how she felt about that. She hated everything about the dummy plug, but it gave them options that didn't involve relying on 15 year old teens.

"From your reports, the dummy plug has only mediocre performance, and can't generate an AT field. And Shinji has been very reliable, behaving in a very mature, adult fashion. To my mind, It's a no brainer," Misato gushed over her charge.

"Never say that something is a 'no brainer'. It makes teasing you too easy." Ritsuko corrected, before turning to the mike, "Ok you're done for the day." And hit the drain button.

The three teen scrambled out and over to the locker rooms. As they did, Misato called out, "Shinji – good work! Your sync score topped Asuka!"

Asuka's visage began to darken,"I don't think that's a fair comparison. I didn't have a good nights sleep last night."

Shinji recalled his own recent 'night', and being interrupted in the middle by a hysterical Inia. He also recalled something else Inia had said, from her experience working with sometimes temperamental fellow pilots. "We aren't competing against each other, Misato. We're all on the same team, and the only opponents are the Angels."

Misato opened her mouth to respond when Ritsuko barked a laugh, "And I thought you said he was socially withdrawn!"

Shinji cringed under the comments.

"Just because he's shy doesn't make him an idiot!" Asuka defended her fellow pilot.

Misato threw up her hands in defeat.

"Are you certain that they are teenagers?" Ritsuko asked, "Maybe these are their future selves that somehow traveled back in time?"

"I'm going, now." Misato shook her head, " I have a meeting."

/\ PoC /\

That evening, Misato arrived to find the apartment all set up for a party – a banner read 'congratulations'; while a stack of pizza boxes sat on the counter, next to a tray of home made snacks that Shinji had assembled.

"Congratulations!" Cheered the assembled teens. In addition to Shinji and Asuka, Toji, Kensuke and Hikari were present.

"Wow, you guys really outdid yourselves!"

"Nah, it was mostly this guy." Toji gently punched Kensuke in the shoulder.

"I invited Rei as well, but I don't know if she will show up." Shinji knew he should have done more than just send her an impersonal email, but he couldn't quite bring himself to interact with her more.

In some ways she was almost as scary as his father.

"And I invited Kaji," crooned Asuka.

Misato gritted her teeth, but smiled anyway, "well, he's late. We should start without him." She opened up a pizza box.

Any protests were quelled by the tantalizing aroma of pizza – nectar of the gods (or at least teens). But before Misato could relax, the door opened to reveal Kaji accompanied by Ritsuko.

"I hope this is the right place," Kaji joked.

"How come you're together?" Misato demanded immediately. Asuka glanced over at her vehemence. Asuka still kind of liked the older man, but not enough to make a big deal about it: She had come to realize that he ignored her. Oh, he pretended that he wasn't but he never remembered anything she said. He was kind of a jerk that way.

"We just met up on the way. " Kaji placated.

"Oh, I bet you're two timing!" Asuka countered venomously. Not that she really cared, but if he wasn't going to pay attention to her, then she was going to make him suffer.

"Come get your pizza," Misato interrupted before things could get out of control.

/\ PoC /\

"So, your idiot friend did ok," Asuka had ditched Hikari after the other girl focused all of her attention trying to chat up Toji. Not only was she being completely ignored, but she had to be within 10 feet of the jock. She could feel her brain cells dying from being in close proximity to such a massive source of stupid. Instead she perched on the kitchen counter, next to where Shinji was hanging out to avoid the press of people.

"I told you, Kensuke is a good guy," Shinji countered.

"Hump. I'll reserve judgment." Asuka stole the pepperoni off of Shinji's second slice of pizza. Shinji was just opening his mouth to protest when she continued, "so, why do you pilot?"

Misato roared with laughter in response to something Kaji had said. The adults were talking (and drinking) in their own little cluster. Asuka frowned and looked away.

"How could I not?" Shinji replied, and then paused. He wasn't certain how to explain it, without revealing the existence of his 'imaginary' friend. And that wouldn't turn out well. Even he knew that.

"That's a stupid answer," Asuka retorted, but before Shinji could protest, she added, "I'm asking because I'm not certain what my reason is. And it seems like you should have something, if you are going to get into an Evangelion and put your life on the line."

Shinji nodded. "What I meant was.. The way the world is, after second impact. Everybody is working so hard to rebuild it – heck, that's all our history teacher talks about – that, I felt I had to help somehow."

"And fighting aliens is your contribution to society?"

"I guess. We're the only ones that can do it, so if we don't everybody will die."

"I guess that works," Asuka said sourly. It wasn't much of a reason. At least, it wasn't one that she could appropriate. She knew why she piloted – she was a genius after all, and it would be pretty stupid not to know what was going on in your own head – but she found that she didn't care about impressing people as much as she used to.

"Do you ever wonder if there are other universes out there?" Shinji asked tentatively. "I mean, not like other inhabited planets, but other versions of Earth, in a completely separate reality."

"You mean like different surfaces of a Riemann manifold? One class I audited talked about that as a possibility, though obviously nobody has any evidence so it's pretty much just hypothetical. It's the sort of thing theoretical physicists talk about at parties and such."

"Guess what?" Shinji gestured to the party going on around them.

"Yeah. It would be pretty cool if other Earths existed. I could meet an alter-Asuka, and see how her life was. Maybe in a world where Second Impact never happened."

"Have you considered that our world might be the best alternative out there? That in the other universe, maybe all life on earth ended in Second Impact? Or some other alien races invaded and ate all the people?"

"Uh. That's just depressing." Asuka jumped off the counter to go see if she could pry Hikari off of Toji.

"It ties into why I pilot. I think there are many Earths out there, and many of them are pretty crappy. I just want to keep ours from becoming like that."

Asuka stopped and looked at Shinji. It was an oddly compelling image. A sort of a heroic last stand, "ok". It was still depressing.

/\ PoC /\

Later that night, after everybody had left, Shinji and Asuka gently herded a slightly inebriated Misato to her room.

"Rei never showed up." Misato realized, and turned to head for the phone. "Maybe I should call her."

"And tell her what? The party is over, Misato." Shinji tried to steer their putative guardian back towards her room.

Asuka mimed picking up the phone, "hey, Rei, you missed a good party."

"Exshat.. exactly!" Misato escaped from Shinji's guidance and headed back for the phone in the kitchen.

"Not helping, Asuka!" Shinji motioned for Asuka to give him a hand.

"Come on, Misato. You have work tomorrow." Asuka took the Major's other side, and they finally were able to chivvy her to her room, where she promptly fell into bed.

"Thank you," Shinji sighed, "I don't know why we're stuck having to be the responsible ones."

"Hey, if we're responsible enough to be the guardians of humanity, were good for taking care of one immature commanding officer." Asuka retorted.

Shinji smirked up at the redhead. He recalled what Inia had said, about how having a copilot. "Uhm, Asuka... Do you want to ask Misato about working some more on the dual synchronizations test. I mean, with both of us in the Unit 01 entry plug? I mean, it would be good to have somebody working together with me, that I could trust," he asked tentatively.

Asuka froze. "Are you.. asking me out?"

Shinji knew this was a trick question. Inia had explained it one day when she was talking about why she wasn't interested in dating any of the guys in her squadron – that they didn't mean what they said. And how it always pissed her off how they flirted & toyed with women's feelings without taking them seriously.

"Uh, yeah?"

/\ PoC /\

The next day dawned weird.

Misato was working the afternoon shift, so she took the opportunity to sleep in, and try to recover from her hangover. That left Shinji and Asuka to have breakfast together. And then they walked to school. Together.

Of course, they had been living in the same apartment for months, and doing all of the exact same things, but now they were... together.

Sort of.

Maybe?

Neither one had dated before, so they weren't quite certain what the protocols were. They didn't know what to say to each other, or what to think. The one thing the both were (secretly) in agreement about was that Shinji was eff'ing things up.

Thankfully, school took up the day, and for once both paid attention.

"Shinji. Hey, Earth to Shinji." Kensuke called out, "It's lunch time. Lets go, or we'll lose our spot."

Shinji finished packing his books away. "You guys go on. I need to see Asuka about something."

"That sucks," Toji replied. He had been waiting patiently for his friends by the lockers, "good luck with the red devil."

"Uhm, have you seen where she went?"

"Nope. I think she might have left with Hikari."

Shinji nodded and went in search. He had an idea were Asuka liked to eat lunch – either in the back, under the big oak, or up on the roof. But looking out the window revealed nobody in back, and the roof was empty, except for some third years.

Shinji decided to desultorily head down to the cafeteria – maybe she was in there for some reason, when he spotted her eating by herself on the library steps.

"Asuka? I was hoping to eat lunch with you." But before Asuka could reply, their cell phones went off.

"Let's go, Baka! It's an Angel attack" Asuka grinned, having regained her self confidence the moment she was back in familiar territory. Fighting for her life was so much less scary than this whole dating thing. The teens ran for the school's service entrance, where their Section 2 driver was stationed for just such an emergency.

"Asuka?" Shinji had his hand on the outside door, preventing Asuka from going out to the car. "You don't need to hide from me." He stepped out and ran the last few steps to the car.

/\ PoC /\

"So let me get this straight," Asuka repeated incredulously. "The three of us are going to catch the Angel as it falls from orbit?"

The three pilots were in the command room, and had just been briefed on the newest Angel, which was apparently in orbit. A view screen off to one side showed an image of the Angel captured by a satellite – it looked like a giant eye with fingers.

"We aren't exactly certain where it will hit, so most likely only one of you will be in position to catch but, yeah, that's pretty much it," Misato replied calmly.

"Ok." Rei nodded and turned to go board her Evangelion.

"What, are you stupid?" Asuka turned after Rei and was about to start a rant when Shinji took her hand.

"Asuka, you're right, it's a dumb plan, but its the best we got. If Misato comes up with something better, she'll radio us. But right now, we don't have time to second guess our commanding officer."

Asuka sighed, looked down at Shinji's hand, looked up at Shinji. She was clearly torn as to whether to listen to Shinji or to continue yelling.

"We will have the dual sync test after we deal with this Angel, ok?"

Asuka shook her head in bemusement, a small smile on her face. "Fine, baka."

Misato looked up from her screen, "Um, what just happened? It sounded like Shinji just talked Asuka out of her screaming fit."

"Yes, Ma'am." Makoto replied as he continued typing away, getting the best coordinates for the Evangelions.

"But that's not physically possible."

"Neither is catching an Angel falling from orbit, Ma'am."

/\ PoC /\

Shinji waited at his designated starting point. So far, this sortie seemed like a typical Angel battle – an hour of stomach clenching anticipation which would be shortly followed by 5 minutes of absolute bowl loosening terror.

But right now they were still in the anticipation stage, so Shinji had time to dwell on stuff. Like how his relationship with Asuka had spiraled out of control. What had started as a charity project had somehow morphed into them dating.

Shinji checked the feed from command – they still had ten minutes before they could tell which sector the Angel was going to hit in.

Except it was pretty clear that Asuka wasn't interested. So it was going to go on the record as the shortest relationship ever. And he wasn't certain how he felt about that. He hadn't meant to ask her out. He just didn't want to hurt her (or their rather delicate relationship) by saying no. But that didn't mean he wanted her to completely ignore him.

"Hey, Baka," it was a communication from Unit 02, "If you don't die in this… this. Lets hang out, Ok? We can watch TV." Asuka asked nervously.

Shinji smiled, "Yeah. We can do that." Despite them being about to die, hearing Asuka say that had felt really good.

"Enough chit chat. " Misato came on the line, "we have a vector."

Shinji was wrong – it was only 3:34 minutes of abject terror.

/\ PoC /\

"I can't believe we caught the Angel. That you caught the Angel!" Asuka was exuberant. Everything had gone according to plan. The Angel had died, they hadn't, and she had a boyfriend. She glanced over at Shinji, just to check that. ' _Yup. Still a dweeb._ ' But he liked her, which made up for everything else.

"The Evangelions AT field redirects kinetic energy into a trans-dimensional space." Rei explained, "with that, all that was required was that we be at the right spot." The three pilots were waiting for Misato, who had promised to take them out for dinner as a reward for pulling off her hair brained scheme. With the commander and vice commander both out of the office, she had been the senior officer, making this intercept all hers. And it had gone off spectacularly.

"Thank you," Shinji replied quickly to Asuka, before the two female pilots could get to arguing. Again.

Asuka smiled.

"Hey. Guys, pile in!" Misato finally made her appearance, and herded the lot to her car. As they took off at rocket-like speed, she explained "Small change of plans – the restaurant I was hoping for is closed, so we'll have to go with plan B."

Dinner was one of the first times that all three of the pilots had interacted socially and enjoyed it. Maybe it was the release of stress, or maybe it was that Asuka was for the first time radiating happiness instead of a mild sense of irritation.

Misato was pleasantly surprised at how well everybody got along, especially Asuka, who not only didn't pitch a fit over the fact that Misato ended up taking them to a food stand instead of a fancy restaurant (the excuse that the restaurant had been stepped on by an Eva was true. It was equally true that Misato figured that if she was going to spend money to eat out, she should do it someplace where she actually liked the food).

But Asuka was actually chatting amiably with Rei and Shinji, making an effort to be nice. And Rei almost smiled. Shinji looked a little distracted, like he often did. There was something wrong with that boy, if he was bored talking to two pretty girls. Maybe he was gay?

/\ PoC /\

 _'Hey, Shinji, can we talk?'_ It was Inia. Shinji glanced around. Asuka and Rei were discussing something, and Misato was nowhere to be seen, so he zoned out to respond.

 _'Just for a bit. I'm at dinner.'_

 _'Oh, that's ok. I only have a half hour downtime, and then I have to go back on patrol – there are rumors that the RLF terrorists breached a research lab down at the American military base that was working on live BETA and released them.'_ Inia explained, _'everything is upside down. It's good to talk to you, to get some sanity in my life.'_

 _'Wait, what? Why were they keeping BETA near a city? I can understand studying them, but I would think that they would do it somewhere in Kamchatka,'_ Shinji interrupted.

 _'Yeah,'_ came the tired response, _'Not certain yet if its true – we're currently operating out of the Soviet base, but we're going to go check it out shortly. With any luck, it's just a handful of Soldier class. We are still cleaning up from the terrorist attack, so nobody knows anything as we try to root out the sleeper cells.'  
_

"Hey Shinji. Earth to Shinji. Are you going to sit there spacing out, or are going to eat that?" Asuka pointed to the strips of meat, "Cause if you don't want it, I'll take it." She eyed Shinji – her putative new boyfriend – and decided to set a few boundaries, "And you know, if you don't respond, I'm going to take them anyway."

' _I got to go.'_ Shinji set quickly to Inia, _'I'm dating Asuka, and she is threatening to steal my food.'_

In retrospect, there were better ways to have handled that conversation, but Shinji's mind was on his meat.

/\ PoC /\

"Asuka?" It was the following day at school, and Hikari accosted her friend on the way to lunch, "I was wondering if you would go on a date with a friend of my sister."

"Isn't your sister a third year in high school? How old is this guy?"

"He's a couple of years older that us, but I thought you liked older guys, from how you go on about Kaji. And besides, my sister says he really likes you."

"Yew. Just yew." Asuka stuck out her tongue like she was gagging. "I'd rather date Shinji."

Hikari sighed. "What's wrong with Shinji?" Asuka talked about Shinji all the time, and it was always the same sort of thing – _'Shinji cooked diner, but it wasn't perfect. Shinji complemented me on this, that and the other thing, but he missed one item...'_. Hikari wished Asuka would get a clue. Even to an outside observer, Shinji seemed like a decent guy.

"Nothing, I guess," Asuka prevaricated. She wasn't quite ready to admit that she was dating Shinji. Not even to Hikari. She glancing over to where the afore mentioned boy was putting his books away and chatting with the jock and the geek.

"Well, I think he's a nice guy. And I know you are scared of dating anybody.."

"I'm not scared, I am just too mature for any of the guys our age, and the I'm not going to date some older pervert" Asuka pronounced.

"Well, that kind of takes care of everybody," Hikari shrugged, "so, where do you want to eat?"

Before Asuka could reply, a voice asked from off to the side, "Uhm, Asuka, you want to go eat on the roof?"

Asuka almost levitated as she turned to face Shinji, "Yeah, sure. Let's go. By, Hikari!' And the two teens left the pigtailed class rep standing with her mouth open.

/\ PoC /\

"Ok. Did you just see what I saw?" Kensuke asked his companion.

"Yeah. Shinji just betrayed the human race." Toji replied as they watched Shinji and Asuka walk out of the classroom together. It was the end of an era. They had read enough manga to know that they wouldn't see their friend again until the Red Devil had had fill of him and dumped him like yesterday's laundry.

"Maye they just have some NERV stuff that they need to do?" Kensuke asked hopefully.

"What, like that training where they had to dress alike and spend all their time together?"

"Um... when you put l it like that, it sounds like an excuse for dating."

"Creepy dating," Toji added before shrugging, "Lets go get food."

/\ PoC /\

"You know, your loser friends were staring at us all afternoon." Asuka commented as they walked home.

Shinji sighed, _'remember – charity case.'_ He glanced sideways at Asuka, ' _Ok, maybe a very hot charity case.'_ He was conflicted, "I know you don't like them, but they are my friends."

"Sorry," Asuka muttered.

"Anyway, I thought you were going to go hang out with Hikari after class."

Asuka shrugged, "I like Hikari, but she's a little too responsible – she's going to be saying after school for some class rep meeting. Ugh."

"Says the girl responsible for protecting the human race." Shinji countered.

Asuka smirked, "ah, you want to go out to eat? I can phone Misato and let her know we'll be late."

"I forgot to tell you – Misato said she's going to be out late- she has a wedding/reception/bridal shower/thing she's going to. So I figure I'll just cook something at home. Maybe something European?"

"Um, OK." Cooking was definitely one of Shinji's talents. "But I doubt you'll be able to get German food right."

"Oh, it's easy. You just add sauerkraut to everything, right?"

Asuka elbowed Shinji in the ribs.

/\ PoC /\

"Too bad Misato missed this." Asuka commented as she polished off the last of the gravy with a crust of bread (store bought, but still good). "You want to watch something?" she waived towards the TV.

"Sure."

Watching was awkward. They sat down like usual on the couch, except Shinji didn't put his feet up on the coffee table, and Asuka didn't sprawl like she usually did across 2/3 of the couch. They sat properly. That lasted until halfway through the first show, when Asuka proclaimed, "You're my boyfriend. That means I have certain privileges!" And spun around so he could use Shinji's lap as a pillow.

It was much later, and still no sign of Misato. The TV had been turned off and Shinji was reading a book while Asuka stared off into the distance, lost in thought. Or so it appeared,

' _You have a girlfriend! That's great!'_ Inia almost squealed. Dating and guns seemed to be her two favorite topics.

' _I guess. But I have no idea what to do.'_

' _So? That's what dating is about."_

' _But.. you know about stuff. Asuka is laying on my lap. What should I do? I don't want to be pushy, but she's really delicate, and if she thinks I'm being standoffish, shell be annoyed.'_

" _How should I know? I haven't dated.'_

' _You haven't?_

' _No.'_

That didn't really fit with Shinji's image of Inia, but he was too busy worrying about Asuka to worry about Inia. ' _Well, you're a girl. You know what the guy should do in a situation like this. If it was you laying on my lap, what would you want me to do?"_

 _'Kiss me.'_

' _What?'_

"Shinji, you want to kiss?" asked Asuka.

Shinji looked down nervously, his connection to Inia broke as he began to sweat, "um, ok"

Asuka sat up and tentatively placed her lips on Shinji's.

 _'This is nice.'_

/\ PoC /\

"Good job, ladies and gentlemen," Misato commended the pilots as they exited their entry plugs. "Both Asuka and Shinji improved their synchronization score. Though Shinji is now consistently in the lead."

A growl came from the redhead pilot, "Don't get used to that, Third. I'm going to retake the lead, even if I have to pummel you!" At Shinji whipped around in terror, she added in a more normal tone, "seriously, don't get cocky, Shinji. I am still a better pilot," and sauntered off.

Misato scratched her head, _'what was that, just now? I seriously don't get teenagers._ ' She had effectively skipped her teenage years as an almost catatonic recluse in a psych ward, so she lacked first hand experience.

Before Misato could say anything, the alarm sounded. "Major, we have something entering our sentry line."

"Something? Is it an Angel?"

"I can't tell, Ma'am – it's coming in as pattern orange, but the the radar cross section is not like anything that we have on record. At it's current rate of progress, we'll have it on monitors in five minutes."

Misato considered, before announcing peremptorily: "Pilots, prepare to sortie."

As the docks burst into activity, she made a beeline for the the command center.

/\ PoC /\

"This sucks," Asuka pronounced. For the third time, "I was hoping to go home, take a shower and relax."

"I know. Why can't the Angels come during school hours." Shinji replied.

"There is no reason to expect the Angels to keep to a human schedule. It would be not unreasonable for them to arrive in the middle of the night," Rei contributed.

"Uh. They better not."

"Evangelions, launch. " Misato commanded, sending the behemoths shooting up their respective elevators. Once they were at the surface, she continued: "grab a power cable and advance cautiously – were not certain what we are dealing with here."

What confronted the pilots was a giant floating sphere, with a pattern of black stripes running around it, almost like they were liquid.

"What do we do from here?" Shinji asked.

"Approach slowly: we're still not getting a constant blue signal."

"I think it's pretty clear that that thing is an Angel. I can take it out from here." Asuka stationed Evangelion 02 next to a shield barrier and raised her pallet rifle.

"Hold, Asuka. We don't know for certain. And more importantly, we are not detecting a core."

"I'll circle to the other side." Shinji began to advance, followed by Rei.

"Don't come too close, just in.. we have blue!" Misato yelled, just as everything in the sphere's shadow began to sink into the ground.

"Shinji, pull back!" Asuka yelled, as she opened fire.

"Unit 00, retreat! You are blocking Unit 02's line of fire." Misato commanded.

Shinji took the opportunity to fire a burst from his pallet rifle as Rei retreated from the Angel. As he turned to follow, the Evangelion wouldn't move – one foot was sinking into the shadow.

"Rei, Asuka, give me a hand!" As the other two units moved towards Shinji, Unit 01 (and the surrounding structures) began to sink faster.

"Shinji! Grab onto something" Asuka called out as she tried desperately to reach Unit 01 without having her own Evangelion sucked into the black.

"Help?"

Rei opened fire on full burst at the sphere, but like all the previous shots, they had no effect.

Unit 01 sank from sight, one hand waving in a desperate attempt to grab hold of something.

/\ PoC /\

"Get him back!" Asuka stormed over to Misato. The two pilots had been recalled while Ritsuko analyzed the data and tried to figure out what they were dealing with.

"How?" Misato retorted. She wanted to retrieve Shinji just as much, but they had no idea what had happened.

"You don't care!" Asuka stomped off to a corner of the control room to sulk. She didn't dare go further than that, for fear of missing some development. She couldn't risk losing Shinji.

Misato looked over to where Ritsuko was leaning over Maya, peering at the sensor readings. "Anything?"

"Nothing except the obvious – the Angel is the black 'shadow' on the ground, not the spherical projection hovering above it. And that given the complete lack of energy when things contact it, I expect that the are being transported elsewhere rather than destroyed."

"You said that an hour ago," Misato sighed.

"And it's no less true now. Now shut up and let me work."

/\ PoC /\

Shinji tried to orient himself. Everything around him was gray, and there was no sound. It was like being in a sensory deprivation tank. Even the Evangelion was silent, as he had put the unit into standby mode to conserve power. _'I wish we had the nuclear reactors that Inia uses.'_

The radio was the only thing he kept powered up, but even that was silent. It was starting to get a little chilly, but it wasn't too bad yet. There was also a sense of... a presence that was reaching out to him. It was like a pressure. He couldn't quite describe it with words, but it wasn't pleasant – it was clingy and oppressive.

 _'Inia?'_ He tried reaching out to the older teen, but she didn't reply. But he could almost feel her, and that pushed the strange other presence aside. Maybe wherever he was made telepathy stronger, or maybe it was the complete lack of distractions, but he soon was feeling a shadow of what Inia was experiencing. She was anxious, which was periodically broken up by burst of giddiness and abject terror. Shinji was familiar with this sensation: ' _She's in combat. I shouldn't call out to her.'_

Shinji relaxed, and tried to wait. Misato would rescue him.

As he drifted, his sense of Inia increased. She was really scared now.

Shinji thought he could even tell the direction that the sensation was coming from. He pivoted back and forth, sniffing like a dog. Yes, definitely. He powered up the Evangelion and reached for where he 'felt' Inia. There was nothing there, but maybe...

Unit 01's hand closed on something! Shinji pulled himself forward. There was a... something.. in the gray. He could feel it – a crease or a fold – even though he saw nothing. He wedged the Evangelion's fingers into it and PULLED.

/\ PoC /\

The technicians were racing to find some way to power up the rail gun as the BETA hammered away at the hanger door. The rail gun was still on its truck mounted transport, but it was the only weapon that they had that could stop a Grappler class BETA. If they could get it powered up and aimed.

All of a sudden, something on the far side of the hanger, back with the abandoned experiments, lit up with a dancing purple radiance. "I think that's the dark-energy mining set up" One of the technicians pronounced, "I didn't realize it was still running. It must be self-powered."

"Never mind that," replied a more level headed engineer, "Is it going to blow?" The glow from the instrument had spread, and was making ripples in the air. At the same time, the banging from the hanger door changed tenor as the metal began to tear.

With another ripple, the air parted, opening into a giant slit through which stepped a giant, anthropomorphic *something*.

Before the stunned technicians could respond, the hanger door ripped off its hinges and the Grapple class burst in.

/\ PoC /\

"As far as I can tell, that Angel is actually a portal into a Dirac singularity – a discontinuity in realty or possibly between realities." Ritsuko was lecturing to the assembled bridge staff, along with Asuka, who had not budged from her nook. The LCL had dried onto her plug suit, and Maya had draped a blanket over her, but otherwise she hadn't moved.

"I don't know how much 'stuff' it can swallow, as a Dirac singularity doesn't have any physical 'space' inside it, not as we understand it. Basically, it is infinity large at the same time as all sides are infinity close together. According to my calculation, a sufficiently large impulse of energy will distort it."

"And for those of us that don't have advanced degrees?" Misato asked, a trifled annoyed. It always bothered her when Ritsuko showed off how much smarter than her she was.

"If we drop enough N2 mines into it, it will pop."

"And what about Shinji? Will he also 'pop'?" Asuka uncurled from her corner like a spider coming awake.

"Unit 01 should survive that intact. I am uncertain about the pilot," Ritsuko shrugged, unconcerned.

"We will explore all other options first." Misato glared at her friend before turning to Shigeru, "Assuming Shinji put Unit 01 on standby, how long does he have?"

"Another 6 hours, maximum."

"Ok, people. We have six hours to figure out how to rescue Shinji. Otherwise, we'll have to go with N2 mines as a last resort."

"We can't do that." Asuka replied calmly, As Misato turned to her, puzzled, Asuka pulled her mind into gear, "Misato, what do you need me to do to help rescue Shinji?" After the way he had dived into a volcano to rescue her, she was willing to dive into the Dirac whatever to get his stupid ass out.

/\ PoC /\

Shinji pulled on the nothing, and the nothing tore. He stepped through back into the world. He had no idea where he was. People were scampering about, yelling, there was a horrible pounding, and he could feel a tugging on his connection to Inia, but he could no longer discern emotions, it was just a sense. Shinji glanced at his power meter - He had less than 4 minutes of battery left.

Something ugly and about knee high leaped at his Evangelion – it was quadrupedal, with two giant claws and a stubby tail.

Shinji instinctively raised his AT field, but it continued trying to claw its way in. He had no idea what it was, but it was attacking him. So he responded the way he had been trained: he grabbed it with one hand, and stabbed it with the progressive knife towards where he thought the core should be. The ugly thing died in a burst of gore.

The people were jabbering and pointing, so Shinji turned on his external comm gear

"What is that? Is that one of ours?"

"I don't know, but it looks like the sort of shit that the skunk works would pull, making a TSF that looked like a BETA."

"Um, hello? Can you here me?" Shinji broadcast. The technicians quieted down, "Do you have a power supply here? I am running on battery." Unit 01 knelt down and pointed at it's back, were the severed end of the power cable was dangling.

The techs consulted with one another, "If you can power down, we can jury rig a connection to the rail guns reactor. It'll take about a half hour." Several glanced nervously out the ruined hanger door, "After that, you can get us out of here? We're pretty much cut off by the BETA."

As if to punctuate that, a Soldier BETA – just slightly larger than human - ran past.

Shinji considered. He was in Inia world, which kind of made sense, since he had followed her mind to get here. He wasn't certain what to do next, but he wasn't leaving his Evangelion while the BETA were around. And he needed power. "Ok. Go fast." and he put Unit 01 back on standby.

As the technicians worked, several kept watch out the hanger door, and one wandered over to the rift into the Dirac sea

"Don't touch that!" Shinji called out.

Shinji waited anxiously, watching the crew work, and stealing glances at the carcass of the BETA that he had killed. It blocked half the room, the blood seeping out and covering the floor. _'Why is the blood red? Inia said they were a silicon based life form.'_

It felt like hours, with the sound of heavy caliber machine guns rattling in the distance, and the banging of metal being smashed coming neared, but finally one of the techs called out, "Fire it up, see if you blow the fuse." Shinji crossed his fingers that they hadn't messed up on the wiring and activated the outside power feed. The battery timer jumped back to 5 minutes, and stayed there, not dropping.

"I don't know how long this will last, but thank you."

"Thank us by getting us out of here. We're surrounded." As if to punctuate the technicians words, a TSF crashed into the building.

Unit 01 grabbed the mini-reactor under one arm – it was a bit bulky, but manageable – and pulled out the large pistol that he had been testing out against the Angel and stepped out to check the lay of the land.

The Eva had to stoop to get out of the hanger, but when it unfolded, it was confronted with a hellish scene: On the north side, a TSF was fighting against a squad of Tank class BETAs – smaller than the Grappler, with arms in place of claws, but very fast. And they were a disturbing red color. They had the TSF pinned against a hanger as they tried to bite pieces off.

To the east, a group of assorted TSFs were trying to slow an advanced cluster of BETA. Everywhere else, there was a tide of bodies, like some kind of giant ants, a living carpet advancing inexorably.

BAM!

Shinji shot one of the BETA attacking the northern TSF. As the BETA pivoted to deal with the counter-attack, the TSF shot one of the others and rocketed over to Shinji. It was about half the height of the Evangelion, but much more heavily armed, with a pair of Pallet rifles and what looked like a Katana.

"Who are you? What's your unit?" the Eva radio picked up the transmission as the other pilot sent on all channels.

"How do we get out of here?" Shinji glanced at his power meter – it still read 5:00

The TSF rose up 50 feet into the air and slowly rotated around. "There are not gaps. We need to regroup with the others, and maybe we can make a break." It as clear that he knew it was a forlorn hope – unless they got reinforcement soon, they were going to be over run.

The TSFs that he was referring to were still engaged in battle to the east, and a fort class BETA – a huge, multi-legged monster as tall as the Evangelion, and much more massive – was about to cut off their line of retreat.

"I'll take care of the giant BETA, you get them over here. I may have a way out." Shinji adjusted the reactor into a football hold and ran at the Fort, slamming into it with his AT field. 4:58.

Shinji fired all of his remaining ammunition into the giant BETA, but it had no effect. The rounds couldn't penetrate deep enough to damage anything vital. The Fort tried to take a bite out of Unit 01 but, it couldn't get any purchase. Two of the forelegs battered at the Evangelion, hitting hard enough to make it shift position despite the AT field. Shinji dropped the pistol and lashed out with a progressive knife, but the blade was too short. He left shallow cuts over the monster's body, but it was not slowed.

All of a sudden, Shinji felt a presence. Before he could spare a glance, a large TSF glided in and opened fire with with a pair of pallet rifles.

"Pull back. We'll hold the line." It was Inia!

Shinji gave a push with his AT field, flipping the huge monster up and exposing the BETA's underbelly, which the TSF proceeded to pound with its cannons. When the Fort staggered back, Shinji turned and ran for the research hanger.

3:24. The battery timer was running now.

"There is a sort of dimensional rift inside. We can go through to escape the BETA," Shinji peered inside. The opening to the Dirac singularity had faded to a faint scar, but it was still visible. The half dozen technicians had gathered inside an armored troop transport.

"Do you have space suits? I don't know if there is air in there." Shinji pointed to the rift. Several technicians went running, grabbing firefighter respirators, test pilot masks and any other supplies that could bee repurposed to provide air.

"The BETA are almost here!" Came the voice of the first TSF pilot. "We need to evac stat!" He was apparently somebody in authority.

Shinji nodded, "somebody grab the jeep with the scientists." And he pulled the tear into the Dirac singularity open.

/\ PoC /\

"Ma'am the the Dirac sea is fluctuating again." Makoto pronounced. Time was up, and they hadn't been able to find any way to extract Shinji. Misato had called up half of Japan's stockpile of N2 mines, and they now stood poised to be dropped into the singularity.

Asuka and Rei were standing by on the sides of the disaster area, in case the Angel tried to escape. _'Everybody abandons me,'_ Asuka was curled into a fetal ball, her knees pulled up to her chest, as she sat in her command chair. ' _First mama, then papa. Now the Baka.'_

"Last time the ripples didn't signify anything." Misato replied, glancing at the timer, "Drop the mines in 2 minutes and counting."

They watched the timer.

One minute

30 seconds

"Drop"

Fifty N2 mines fell from the hovering VTOLs, splashing down into the Dirac singularity.

"10 seconds to detonation," Misato glanced nervously at the timer, _'I am sorry Shinji. But we have to kill the Angel.'_ This was followed by, ' _I hope the timers don't malfunction in there.'_

"10 seconds...9.. 8.. 7.. 6.. 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1.."

Detonation.


	8. Chapter 8

There was a ripple in the black shadow that was the entrance to the Dirac Singularity, then nothing.

"Shit. It failed," Misato turned to give new orders to Ritsuko and her staff when Asuka called out.

"Look!" A purple fist had punched through the side of the sphere, and then followed by a second purple hand, had grasped the edges and ripped.

/\ PoC /\

Earlier:

The cluster of TSFs and one Evangelion floated close to each other. The TSF's engines didn't seem to provide any thrust in this strange space, so all of the units held on to each other to avoid drifting off.

"So what next?" came one voice.

"And who are you, anyway?" called out the commander of the TSF with the Katana.

"Uh, I'm Shinji Ikari. I'm an Evangelion pilot, from an alternate realty, I guess." Shinji wasn't certain what to say, but before he could think of anything else, a bunch of small objects appeared in the Dirac singularity. _'Hello. What are those...'_ '"Those are N2 mines!"

He clawed his way forward, putting Unit 01 between the group of TSFs and the string of black pearls that were the N2 mines, and raised his AT field to max, "brace for impact!"

BOOM

The blast of energy splashed against the AT field before spurting out through the tear that the TSFs had entered through, cauterizing it shut.

"That's some force field you have," came a woman's voice.

"There!" Shinji could feel something – it must have been where the N2 mines had appeared from, for the blast had set up ripples there.

He dropped the reactor and punched out at the ripple, grabbing it with both hands and pulling. As he did, the closest TSF grabbed hold of Unit 01's shoulder pylons, so as not to be left behind.

/\ PoC /\

 _'He's alive!'_ Asuka watched as Unit 01 tore its way out of the Angels body. A sense of profound elation flooded through her, to be quickly followed by confusion as a half dozen mechs followed Unit 01 out of the collapsing singularity, "Baka! What did I tell you about bringing home strays?"

She would let Ritsuko figure out what the heck those were. At this moment, she didn't care. She was still giddy with relief.

"Um, Misato, I have some refugees from another earth here?" The way Shinji spoke made it sound as more of a question than a statement. The TSFs carefully landed and the one carrying the troop transport set it on the pavement as they were promptly surrounded by the flotilla of VTOLs that had been hovering over the Angel.

"This is commander Ikari of the NERV defense organization." Came a commanding voice over the radio, "All mech pilots are to land and disembark. You will be treated as refugees under the Geneva convention of 2001. And welcome to my Earth."

Shinji watched in fascination as the TSF pilots followed instructions. As they disembarked, most looked confused – they had just been fighting for their lives ten minutes ago, and now they were in a different world, surrounded by a superior military force - and they lacked the crisp military composure that they usually displayed. Shinji saw a woman pilot with short white hair climb out of the larger twin cockpit TSF, but he could sense Inia was still on board. _'That must be Cryska, her twin.'_ Shinji tried to communicate with Inia, but the sensation now that they were physically so close together was different – it felt more primal, like he was sense emotions rather than logical construct (words).

And that was when Unit 01 ran out of power. Shinji's view screens went dark.

/\ PoC /\

"Baka! Baka! Baka!" It was an hour later, and the area had finally cleared out enough for NERV to be able to get Shinji out of his shut down Evangelion. As soon as his feet had touched ground, Asuka had flung herself at him. She continued to hug tight to him as she called him an idiot.

"I see you went on a little vacation while we were working, over here," Misato joked as she approached the incapacitate pilot.

"Uhm," Shinji wasn't quite certain what to do with his arms, so he held them out from his body slightly, "It wasn't a vacation, really. They were in the middle of a battle against alien invaders there as well." Asuka finally let go, and took a step away, trying to look nonchalant, as if she hadn't just exposed her emotions for the world to see. And been rejected.

"Well, Ritsuko is on cloud nine, as she is interviewing the technicians that you brought over. And everybody else is talking about visiting alternate worlds. This is the biggest thing to happen to the world since Second Impact." Misato talked excitedly. As Asuka tried to take a step away from Shinji, he quickly snatched her hand. Asuka's face lit up for a moment before she brought it under control.

"Anyway, there will be an official debriefing in an hour. So go get cleaned up and get something to eat."

/\ PoC /\

"Hello, Mister Ikari" Shinji was sitting in an empty room, surrounded by holographic blocks that represented interviewers who were interacting via tele-presense, as well a several actual people standing in the shadowed margins of the room. It felt like an interrogation. The only thing that kept Shinji from completely panicking was Misato standing at his shoulder.

"Please commence with your description of events." Monolith 02 stated.

Shinji began a stilted retelling of what had happened. Here, his fear actually served to his benefit, as he had to talk slowly to keep from stuttering. That gave him time to choose his words – he didn't want these people to know about his telepathic communications with Inia. He didn't want Ritsuko dissecting his brain. And she would. That woman scared him (honestly, most women scared him, but for a different reason).

When he got to the part for how he found the exit from the Dirac Singularity, he just said that he felt a ripple there. He tried reaching out to Inia again, to make sure that she would know not to tell NERV anything that would put her in danger of being treated like a lab rat. But again, he got nothing. He just had to hope that she wasn't too trusting. But this was Inia, who personified warm and cheerful. Maybe Cryska would guide her.

"Dr. Akagi. Explain," Monolith 02 commanded.

"Dirac Singularities exist outside the confines of the universe – any universe. But according to the multiverse hypotheses - which IS supported by string theory, by the way – there are an infinite number of almost identical universes out there. Pilot Ikari's observation of the singularity collapsed it to those worlds that most closely fit his observed frame of reference, ie our world. So in another words, he reached out the the BETA earth through pure happenstance."

"So there is no way to return to that 'BETA Earth', even if we could access a Dirac Singularity?" Monolith 03 asked.

"Correct."

Even Shinji could tell that Ritsuko was bull shitting, and that in reality she had absolutely no clue.

"Is it possible that this whole episode was a delusion, caused by the Angel contaminating Pilot Ikari's' mind?" Asked a querulous voice from monolith 05.

"We have the TSFs as evidence to the contrary, as well as technology that, while obviously of human origin, is alien to our reality" Commander Ikari countered.

"And how advanced is the technology in question?"

"We have not had a chance to study it in depth, but it appears to be roughly equivalent to ours, except in terms of miniaturization of the electronics. The TSFs are not much different from the JET ALONE project. One place where BETA earth does excel is computers – theirs appear to be somewhat more advanced." Commander Ikari dismissed the topic casually.

"Can we reverse engineer them? A generational advance in computing will be very profitable." Monolith 03 took the bait as expected, and the interrogation was derailed for the next half hour before the leader – Monolith 02 – could bring everybody to heel.

The interrogation continued in this fashion for two hours, and Shinji was exhausted when he stumbled out of the room (the committee asked Misato to stay for further questioning.)

"Hey, Baka, how did it go?" Asuka pealed herself away from the wall where she had been waiting.

"Uhm, ok. Have you been here this whole time?"

"Yeah. I figure you're my boyfriend. I don't want to misplace you accidentally or something."

Shinji smiled feebly, "Come on, lets go home. I am exhausted."

/\ PoC /\

Next day, as Shinji and Asuka walked to school, everybody they passed was talking about the event of the previous day.

"Do you think people are going to pester me for details?"

"Most likely - you're a celebrity now, you know." Asuka replied airily, watching Shinji's face contort as if it was being sucked out the back of his head. "Hey, don't worry. It won't be that bad."

Actually, Shinji was confident that it probably would. To distract himself, he grabbed Asuka's hand, "Maybe if it was you - you like talking to people."

Asuka looked down at the hand, and then at the people around them, and smiled, "It's a deal, I'll cover for you until lunch, but then you have to give me the low down."

/\ PoC /\

"So how much of their world is over run with these BETA things" Asuka asked as she sipped her soda. They were sitting under the oak tree, having lunch. Despite the simple location, Asuka was so focused on Shinji it didn't matter – they might as well have been in their own booth at a fancy restaurant.

"Uhm, they didn't say. A lot?" Shinji was uncomfortable. He liked Asuka, but he wasn't certain he wanted her to know about the telepathic link to Inia. Not that the link was working. Shinji had tried reaching out to Inia several times, and nothing. "Why, you think you want to move there?"

"If we could, why not? Their Earth hasn't been tanked by Second Impact, and from the way you described the BETA, a couple of Evangelions could roll them up."

"Until they ran out of power and were swarmed by the BETA and EATEN!" Shinji replied vehemently. This world might suck, but at least he knew his place in it. Sure, he had to fight an Angel once in a while, but at least they weren't going to try to eat him.

"Maybe. Hey, do you wonder if there is a Shinji Ikari in that world?" Asuka changed the topic.

"Actually, that never occurred to me." Shinji smiled sheepishly. If there was, he had probably gotten eaten by the BETA.

"Well, there's no way that there is an Asuka. I'm one of a kind." Asuka raised her nose imperiously into the air (which incidentally stuck out her chest).

Before Shinji could reply, Kensuke interrupted "Hey, what are you two love birds up to out here?"

"What are you doing out here?" Asuka demanded. Did the nerd think he could just wander wherever he wanted, spoiling her afternoon? Speaking off spoiling... "and where's the jock?"

"I just came to say 'hi' to Shinji. Toji got called to the principals office, and hasn't come back."

"Is it his sister?" Shinji asked before Asuka could snark something. Inia had told him repeatedly that it wasn't his fault, but he still felt guilty over Toji's sister getting injured during his first battle against an Angel.

"I don't know. It could be he's getting a talking to because his grades are in the toilet," Kensuke shrugged, "You know, the principal could be threatening to take him off of the basketball team and stuff. Oh, that looks good." Kensuke sat down and grabbed a rice ball from the open bento.

Asuka's expression darkened so that it matched the color of her hair, but this loser was Shinji's friend, so she paused to consider her words before screaming him. She didn't want to offend Shinji.

"Uhm, Ken, how about we hang out after school?" Shinji quickly interjected.

Kensuke nodded happily.

"That means you have to leave, now," Asuka elucidated.

Kensuke finally glanced over at the redhead and paled as the projected waves of anger slammed into him. He swallowed reflexively, "Um, yeah. I'll be going now."

Asuka sat sulkily for a moment before getting up as well, "Let's go back to school, Baka." The mood was spoiled.

/\ PoC /\

Asuka was depressed. For the first time in what felt like weeks they didn't have training or harmonics tests or anything after school, and Shinji had to go hang out with the nerd. And Hikari ditched her in favor of helping the jock deliver some school papers to Rei.

Now what was she supposed to do? School was out, and she had nothing. Well, there was homework. Asuka flipped through her phone when an idea came to her.

/\ PoC /\

"Kaji! Your good at Japanese literature. Can you help me with this section here?" Asuka plopped her book back down next to Kaji's desk as she burst into his office.

The older man smiled and quirked an eyebrow in his usual fashion, "Hey, kiddo. Can we do that later? I have some work I need to finish up." He closed the lid on his laptop.

"What, you haven't called or anything in weeks. Except to talk to Misato."

"You're a little young for me, carrot top," he smiled and reached out to ruffle her hair.

Asuka took a step back, out of reach. Why did this jerk have to think everything was about dating? He was a friend, maybe a mentor. "Hey… why does that have four sets of sync scores?" she scooped a piece of paper off of his desk.

Kaji quickly took it back, "Technically, this is private information, you know, kind of like doctor/patient."

"I'm a pilot. I'm cleared for all that secret bull-hooey. Did you find another plot? Are they going to be replacing Wonder girl?"

Kaji sighed, "doctor patient, remember? I can't tell you any more."

"Fine." Something about Kaji rubbed her the wrong way. She couldn't believe she used to like him…. as a mentor.

/\ PoC /\

"Oh, so you're home." Asuka greeted Shinji, "where's Misato?"

"She just called – she has to supervise something in Matsushiro. She won't be back until tomorrow evening."

"Oh," Asuka breathed, as the implications sank in. "She doesn't know we're dating, does she?"

Shinji shrugged, "I don't really tell people stuff about my life." _'Well, except Inia. But that was over now.'_ She had probably been whisked away to some UN facility to be interrogated about BETA earth, and he would never talk to her again.

"And she doesn't listen when *I* talk." To be fair, Asuka mostly complained about Japan, Japanese apartments and Japanese boys to Misato, so the older women could be forgiven for tuning out 90% of what her charge said. "So what are we going to do?"

"Dinner and a movie?"

"Works for me." Asuka smiled.

As the movie finished, neither wanted to leave the couch, so they fell asleep with Asuka curled up on Shinji's lap.

/\ PoC /\

RING, RING, RING

BANG, BANG, BANG

"What's going on?" Shinji staggered up, Asuka following close after. The cacophony was so loud and sudden that they forgot to be embarrassed at waking up together.

A man in a dark suite stormed into the apartment. "We have an emergency, sir. You have to report to NERV immediately."

"Oh, crap. I knew we'd eventually get one in the middle of the night," Asuka muttered as she staggered over to the coffee pot.

"We don't have time for that, ma'am," continued the agent. "I have a couple of cans in the car."

"This sucks," Shinji expounded.

/\ PoC /\

"So what is the Angel like?" Shinji yawned. They were in the mountains west of Tokyo-3. Unit 01 had been sent out to cover the left side of a pass, while Asuka was on the right (with Unit 00 as sniper, on an overlooking bluff). He wasn't certain if he had dozed through the briefing, but he had no clue what he was facing. Of course, Misato wasn't there – his father was running the operation himself for once, and he apparently sucked at organizational skills. Plus Shinji was pretty certain that his dad didn't care if he died or not.

"You will make contact with the angel in 30 seconds at it's present rate. It is progressing along the Kenashi route 112."

"Oh, crap," came the whispered response from Asuka. She had a better vantage point, so she was the first to see the figure shambling towards them along the highway. "That's an Evangelion!"

Gendo did not deny it. "That unit has been infected and taken over by an Angel. We have designated it as the Thirteenth angel. "

"But is there a pilot in there?" demanded Shinji. "How can we fight it if there is a person in there?"

"Our orders are to.." began Rei.

"I don't care what our orders are! I'm doing this to protect people. Not kill them!" Shinji almost sobbed. Protecting people was the one justification that let him fight and still hold onto the corners of who he was, his identity. The only other alternative was to run away.

"Activate the Dummy plug prototype in Unit 01," Gendo commanded Makoto.

"I'm sorry sir. We removed it to install the dual cockpit."

Gendo frowned – he had forgotten Ritsuko had mentioned something about that. He should never have let her do it, but he had been distracted when she brought it up (it had been during one of their late night 'work' sessions that involved him, her, and a desk). So he had ended up indulging her curiosity. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

"Eject the pilot!" demanded Shinji.

"Don't give orders, Pilot" Commander Ikari countered in annoyance at the same time as Maya said,"we've been trying! But something is jamming it in place."

Shinji was just about to argue some more when he felt a tug. His head whipped around. It was Inia: She was inside that thing!

"Engaging Thirteenth Angel" Asuka proclaimed and open fire.

"No, close to melee range and remove the entry plug!" Shinji called out. Asuka kept firing. But the Angel moved with a surprising, almost fluid speed, pouring down the road before it leaped at Asuka.

"Grab it!" Shinji yelled as he bolted towards Asuka's position.

Before he could get there, the Angel smashed Unit 02's pallet rifle into the Eva's torso and spun the Evangelion to the ground before leaping high into the air, landing on top of a surprised Unit 00.

"Rei, hold on to the Angel!" Shinji called out, "Asuka!" He glanced over to see that Unit 02 was back on it's feet, "Immobile the Angel, I will cut out the entry plug."

"Negative," Gendo pronounced, "prioritize destroying the Angel before it contaminates Unit 00."

Asuka glanced at Unit 01, and then at the radio. "Ok. Let's do it."

Unit 02 bounded up the slope and leaped onto the Angel's back, but it twisted liquidly, so that Asuka couldn't get a good grip.

"Shinji and Asuka are both running sync scores in the upper 80's." Shigeru pronounced. The kids were 'in the zone' on this one!

As Unit 01 came running up with its progressive knife out, the Angel released Unit 00 and grabbed hold of the red Evangelion. Or it tried to, but Asuka managed to deflect its arms. The arms moved like half melted taffy, making it impossible for Unit 02 to get a solid hold, but Asuka had enough presence of mind to keep deflecting them. The Angel was just about to jump up and onto Unit 02's back when the prone Unit 00 grabbed it's leg, slowing it, so that Unit 01 could tackle the angel to the ground before it could leap away.

"Steady it!" Shinji called out as he readied his progressive knife. The entire back of the angel was spidered with ropey tendrils, several of which crossed over the half-ejected entry plug. As Unit 02 pressed down hard on the Angel, Shinji slashed through the cords and pulled out the plug, "Got it!"

As he yanked the plug out, the Angel threw Unit 01 off and turned back towards the prone Unit 00, but Rei had managed to swing her sniper rifle around, and as the semi-solid angel wrapped its arm around Unit 00's neck like a rope, she fired from point blank range, right into the armpit.

As the arm came off, Asuka whirled around and slammed the Angel to the ground. "Again!"

Unit 00 fired twice more, shattering the angel's core

/\ PoC /\

"You disobeyed my direct order." Shinji was standing at attention before an extremely angry Gendo.

"Because you gave the wrong order." Shinji countered, "I was on the battlefield, not you. I made a decision based on what I saw. And it worked."

The rest of the bridge crew looked on at the confrontation. Nobody had stood up to Gendo like this before. But then again, Gendo had never lost his cool this badly before either.

"That is not under discussion. Your insubordination is."

"No, that is exactly what is under discussion. My mission is to save lives. If a commanding officer gives an order that conflicts with that, it is an illegal order." Shinji stung together half remembered military rules that Inia had mentioned. "Besides. We won. And we saved the pilot's life."

Gendo glared at Shinji. "we'll see about that."

Shinji's heart skipped a beat, "Is the pilot ok?"

Gendo smirked as Shinji's composure broke. He glanced at the rest of the staff who were assiduously pretending not to be listening in. It was hard to argue with success, but at least he had asserted himself over the Third Child. "You are suspended from piloting for 10 days. Dismissed." He turned and walked calmly to his office.

"What about the pilot?" Shinji repeated.

"She's alive." Maya took pity on Shinji, "She's being checked out at the base hospital."

Shinji nodded.

/\ PoC /\

Shinji walked towards the door. He had gotten directions to Inia's room from the front desk, but now he didn't need that. From this close, he could sense her presence even without the amplification of the Evangelion.

But now that he was here, what should he do? He had never pretended to be other than what he was – a short, skinny, and rather plain teenager - but he was certain that she would be disappointed with him anyways. He had seen her twin as she debarked from her TSF – Cryska was a very self possessed older woman, and rather well endowed. He tried to imagine having the sort of conversation he did with Inia with somebody like Misato. It just wasn't possible. But he couldn't run away – this was the woman who had, in many ways, saved his life. He had to go in.

Shinji took a breath and opened the door.

And stopped in confusion. There was no 19 year old Misato.

Instead there was a stunningly gorgeous girl his own age with long white hair sitting in bed reading. She looked up as he came in, and a look of recognition spread on her face, quickly followed by horror as she pulled the covers up over her head.


	9. Chapter 9

Shinji took a breath and opened the door to Inia's room, preparing himself to deal with an attractive older woman.

And stopped in confusion. There was no 19 year old Misato.

Instead, his heart leaped into his mouth as he was confronted with a stunningly gorgeous girl his own age. Shinji stood and gaped - he was never good with pretty girls.

The girl looked up as he came in, and a look of recognition spread on her face, quickly followed by horror as she pulled the covers up over her head.

"Inia?" Shinji asked, his heart was hammering away like a trip hammer. He could tell it was her. It felt like it was her.

"Don't look," squeaked the covers.

"Are you ok? What happened after you came through the Dirac? I didn't hear anything from you after – we lost the telepathic link. How did you end up here? Why are you hiding under your blankets?" Questions spilled out of Shinji faster than water from a firehouse. With Inia hiding under a blanket, he was able to think again.

Inia lowered her blanket, "I didn't want you to see me."

"What? Why?" Shinji couldn't take his eyes off of her. She didn't have a classic sort of beauty, but instead was cute, almost girlish, especially with her antics.

"Because I lied about what I look like. When you asked, I described Cryska. I didn't think it mattered – you would never see me, and well.."

"Well what? I think you are pretty. Really very pretty." Shinji stuttered. There was an awkward silence, "You know, it's been a really long time since I didn't know what to say to you. Usually, it's so easy to just chat, but now, I.."

"Turn around," pronounced Inia, "Face away from me." She followed her own instructions, turning in her bed so that she was facing the wall. "Pretend I'm half way around the earth, or on the other side of the universe."

Shinji stared at the blank wall. "Huh, that's better. You're really smart, you know that? So what happened after you landed?"

"We got split up – Yuuya and Cryska went with a UN delegation to report to Geneva about the situation on our world, the engineers were taken to your, I mean NERV's, science section, and the rest of us bounced around from medical to interviews with assorted big wigs. Oh, um Shinji, you're right: Your father is an asshole."

"Yeah, I know." Shinji sat down on the bed and leaned back to back with Inia. "I think Misato acts more like a parent than he does. And she's not very good at it. She's nice and all," Shinji added quickly. "She's just a little immature."

"I know. You've told me before." Inia interrupted, "Anyway. A couple of days ago, the angry blond scientist - Ritsuko, I think her name is – asked me if I wanted to try out piloting an Evangelion, to see if I would be compatible."

"What makes you think she's angry?"

"Because she is. I'm an empath, remember?"

"Then how come you didn't realize I was at the door until I came into your room?"

"I was reading, and I can't really identify people by their emotional signature. At least not unless I have spend a lot of time with them." Inia replied sheepishly, before quickly adding, "When we were on different worlds, I was only getting your conscious thoughts – I wasn't getting any of the usual empathic stuff."

Shinji perked up at that, "So now I show up just like everybody else?"

"I wouldn't say like everybody else. You're very special to me."

"Oh," Shinji digested that, but before he could say anything else, Inia continued.

"Ritsuko was really thrilled at how well I synced in the test, so she asked me to try syncing with the new Unit 04 that was being brought to Japan. And the rest you know."

"I'm sorry you have had such a horrible time here."

"Don't be. I'm alive, and your world is fascinating. I love flying in your VTOLs - I wish I could get one to pilot myself – it would be so cool! We stopped development on aircraft back in the '70s, and our TSFs can't go that high above the ground – it's not safe, with the Laser-type BETA."

The conversation drifted from Evangelions to more mundane topics as the two teens sat back to back, chatting like they used to. It was hours later when the nurse entered, saying "I am sorry Mr. Ikari, visiting hours are over."

Shinji stood up, "I wish I could talk longer, but I guess I have to go."

A remarkable transformation swept over the bubbly teenage girl. She looked over at the nurse in a serious fashion and proclaimed, "I am Lt. Shestina, currently attached to NERV, special section. I would like you to find a cot for Pilot Ikari. He will be spending the night."

The nurse halted before continuing a bit more diffidently, "Yes, ma'am."

"You didn't have to.."Shinji began

"I haven't seen you in.. well ever. And I haven't talked to you in weeks." She paused, before continuing sheepishly, "You don't mind, do you?"

/\ PoC /\

"I hear you got into hot water with Commander Ikari." Asuka asked as Shinji slid into class, still dressed in the rumpled clothes from the day before. He had spent half the night talking to Inia, so he was only partially awake.

"Yeah. My dad's a jerk."

"Well, I think you're a hero for what you did. And he had no right detaining you all night for it."

Before Shinji could say anything further, Hikari pronounced "Stand. Bow. Sit" And class began.

Lunch was awkward. He didn't like keeping secrets, but he didn't think that Asuka would react well to finding out that he had spent the night with another girl. Even if she was an old friend that he had never met before.

Fortunately, Kensuke came over to hang out again: Toji's sister had been released from the hospital the day before, and he was staying home to help her out.

/\ PoC /\

"We never talk anymore," Asuka complained as she walked home from school with Shinji.

"That's because you have the sync tests all afternoon while I am suspended for ten days," Shinji prevaricated. "I have a week to go."

"And you always hanging out with the two stooges." Asuka grumbled, "I don't see why you have to spend all your evening with them."

Shinji just shrugged. He didn't know how to explain Inia to Asuka. Or the fact that he was spending most afternoons with her at the hospital. Which was partly that he felt guilty for her injuries – she got injured because he brought her to this world – but it was also partly because she was so easy to get along with. He didn't have to watch what he said so as to avoid an explosion. He had also learned, much to his embarrassment, that he had been getting her name wrong this whole time. It wasn't Inia Sestina, but 'Ina Shestina'. But Inia had insisted that he keep calling her by the wrong name. Shinji forced his face back into a neutral expression, as he realized that he was smiling.

"Well, Ritsuko has me scheduled for a marathon session today, so I won't be home in time for dinner. I sometimes wish that she had been squashed when the Matsushiro complex was destroyed by the 13th angel. Anyway. I'll see you." She gave Shinji a quick peck on the cheek and turned off towards the geofront.

Shinji dumped his bag at home before heading over to the hospital – Inia was being released today, and he wanted to do something nice for her. Maybe take her to dinner. But he wasn't certain if that was appropriate.

As he walked out of the apartment, he almost ran into Kaji, "Hey, Shinji. Is Misato in?" He was holding a bouquet of flowers, "I wanted to bring these by as a get well gift."

"You know how Misato is – she's back at work already," Shinji paused, as Kaji brought the flowers inside and set them into vase, "Um, Kaji, I have a question." Shinji figured that if anybody could help him figure this out, it would be Kaji, "I don't know if you know, but Asuka and I are dating."

"Congratulations," Kaji began, slapping the teen on the back.

"The problem is," Shinji interrupted, "I ah, recently ran into an old friend - a girl - that I was really good friends with, before, and she got injured recently, and I was thinking of taking her out to dinner, to celebrate her being released from the hospital. I was wondering if that was an ok thing to do."

Kaji sighed, the kid was starting to sound like himself, "You have to be honest with your feelings. If you want to be with Asuka, then you can't do that, not at this stage in your relationship. But if you want to date this new girl of yours, you need to let Asuka know, now. And let her down easy. She has abandonment issues."

"Uhm, ok. I'll think about that," Shinji turned to go to the hospital. He would have to rush to get there on time.

Unfortunately, Shinji's approach to confrontations was to ignore them and hope that they go away.

/\ PoC /\

"Uhm, Inia, do you want to go grab something to eat?" Shinji asked as he held the door for Inia so she could step out. Inia had just opened her mouth to reply when the alarm went off. Again.

"All personnel are to report to their security stations. This is not a drill. The building will lower for your protection in thirty seconds. All personal must stay clear of the doors."

Shinji glanced back and forth. "Should we go back inside?"

"No, we'll be stuck there. I want to see what's going on," Inia stepped outside, dropping her meager belonging into the bushes by the sidewalk. "Besides, don't you have to report to NERV?"

"No, I'm still suspended," Shinji said bitterly.

"Do you think that matters, when we are under attack?" 

"With my father, yes. It could be the end of the world, and he would still find the time to be a jerk to me."

Inia smiled and shook her head. "Well, lets head towards the geofront anyway. Maybe we can use my TSF."

Shinji glanced sharply over at her predatory smile, "Don't even joke about that. Without an AT field, we wouldn't stand a chance." But nevertheless, he began walking towards the closest access point. "You're a very violent girl, you know that?"

Inia shrugged. "I'm not violent. I just feel good stopping aliens that are threatening humanity." She paused, before adding gleefully, "And blasting them to bits!"

Shinji couldn't help but smile. The sheer joy she took in life, even in the face of adversity, was immense. They stood like that, staring at each other, as behind them in the distance a huge vaguely anthropomorphic figure came into view, drifting across the space where the city used to be.

Shinji caught the motion out of the corner of his eye: _'oh crap.'_ He grabbed Inia's hand and ran for NERV. In the end, Inia was right – he had to try to help.

/\ PoC /\

Shinji and Inia ended up going down in an access elevator on the periphery of the geofront. Once at the bottom, they took off at a run for the Evangelion dock. They were crossing over to the main building when Unit 02 burst into view, a pair of pallet guns blazing at the Angel.

Inside the Geofront.

They stopped and watched as Asuka blasted away at the Angel, to no avail. The massive, ape-like thing just floated there, its ribbon-tendrils writhing slightly. One of the Angel's whip like arms flashed out, but Asuka dropped and rolled, snatching up a rocket launcher on the way. She charged forward, her AT field mashing into the Angel's, forcing it down as she opened fire with the 6 barrel launcher.

Shuckt – Boom!

The missile detonating against the weakened AT field.

Shuckt – Boom!

and another

Shuckt – Boom!

But before she could launch a fourth projectile, the Angel lashed out, its razor sharp ribbons severing both of unit 02's arms.

As Unit 02 dropped to its knees with a roar of pain, Shinji turned, "we need to go," and they continued running into the NERV complex.

They dodged past technicians hurrying about their tasks. They were almost at the cages when another boom followed. They just entered the giant room as Unit 00 was whisked out on a launch platform.

"What's going on?" Shinji demanded of the officer in charge.

"The Angel is just not stopping. It broke through into the geofront in one strike."

Inia and Shinji looked at each other, "Let me launch. Unit 00 can't handle something like that on it's own." 

"I'm sorry, sir," the officer looked conflicted. On the one hand, he had his order. On the other, the pilot in front of him was his best chance of not dying in the next ten minutes. "You're still suspended."

"But pilot Sestina is not. I'm going to show her how to operate Unit 01!" Shinji led Inia up to the entry plug for unit 01. "My entry plug is built for tandem piloting. We'll both launch."

The floor officer looked relieved at this loophole as he ordered the entry plug to be inserted.

"Unit 01, ready for launch," Shinji pronounced as he and Inia settled into their seats. He toggled on the radio to command and control, "how is the sync score?"

"Shinji?" Misato asked, "What are you doing..."

The building rattled as if an N2 mine had just gone off.

"Angel is not damaged. Unit 00 is incapacitated," came the voice of Maya as the building shook again and cracks appeared in the northern wall.

 _'Inia, can you hear me?_ ' Shinji asked silently.

 _'Yes. Let's do this!'_

The Angel smashed its way inside the the NERV pyramid, heading straight for the command deck that overlooked the docking cages. It ripped through people and equipment with equal impunity.

"Launching Unit 01!" Shinji pronounced. Unit 01 ripped off its restraints and charged at the Angel, smashing into it with its shoulder, shoving it away from the control room window and across the vast room before pinning it to the far wall

"Ma'am," Maya called out in alarm, "the sync score from Unit 01 is at 120 and rising fast!"

Unit 01 hammered repeated at the Angel as Shinji called out, "Misato! Activate elevator 3!"

The radio crackled from the damage that the Angel had done, but Misato realized what Shinji intended, and yanked down the switch.

Immediately, the Angel and Evangelion were pulled into the air as the platform under their feet shot upwards. Unit 01 pinned the angel against the wall the whole way up, so that the the track ripped at its side.

"Shinji, can you hear me? You're on battery, so you only have five minutes!" Misato transmitted, but there was only static for response – the Angel had smashed through the main communications cables, so they were cut off from their antennas and sensors.

Finally, the elevator reached the city level, and the Angel broke free from Unit 01 and darted back to gain room.

 _'Close with it!'_ Inia called, and they charged. Shinji's world focused on this monster that dared attack the people he cared about. The anger was familiar, but the focus, and the righteousness that tinged it, was new. But not completely foreign.

Together, the two teens drove Unit 01 to keep attacking, cracking down the Angel's AT field with each blow.

"Is this safe?" Misato asked Ritsuko. Unit 01's sync score was oscillating between 350 and 400.

Ritsuko shrugged, "I don't even know if its real. Telemetry to Unit 01 is all messed up. If it is real, there is the danger that he will be completely absorbed into Unit 01."

Misato gritted her teeth and nodded. She clutched at the cross on her chest for a moment. There was nothing she could do right now - she had no eyes on the battle, and limited communications. She just had to have faith in Shinji. Faith did not come easily to her.

The Angel pushed back at the Evangelion, and stabbed out with one of its cutting ribbons. The weapon hit an array of orange hexagons in front of unit 01 and stopped, giving the Evangelion enough time to grab the strand and yank.

The Angel tilted forwards, but didn't budge otherwise.

' _Together, pull!'_ Shinji commanded.

"Ma'am – the sync score just spike to over 500!" A tech pronounced

"That's not physically possible!" Ritsuko countered, and ran over to check the reading on the tech's terminal.

"I would have thought that anything over 100% is impossible," Misato commented. She felt like a bystander. Just like during Second Impact. Useless.

Ritsuko looked aver at her friend like she was an idiot. "We tell the pilots that a certain synchronization is 100% because we don't want them exceeding that. But 400% is perfect synchronization. The Eva and the pilot become one: you physically CAN'T exceed that.

"Ma'am, it's at 600 percent and holding."

"Unit 01 is pounding the crap out of the angel!" Makoto pointed to the main view screen. The Evangelion was punching through the Angels AT field with each blow. As the Angel tried to retaliate, the Eva again grabbed the cutting ribbon, but this time it had its progressive knife in the the other hand, and it used that to slice them off, before following up by shivving the Angel in the side. As the Angel tried to retreat, the Evangelion punched it to the ground again, and as the alien tried to right itself, brutally chopped at its torso with the knife, cutting away flesh to reveal the core. The Angel lashed out at with its remaining ribbon, grazing Unit 01's left hand, forcing it to drop the progressive knife.

But that didn't stop the Evangelion. With a roar, Unit 01 used it's bleeding left hand to pin the Angel to the ground, before repeatedly punching it in the core with the other.

WHAM

WHAM

WHAM

CRUMP

The core shattered moments before the Evangelion ran out of power.

/\ PoC /\

"Can we retrieve Shinji?" Misato demanded as Unit 01 was wheeled in. Asuka was standing in the background, still in her her plug suit. She had her arms wrapped around herself, clutching her shoulders to prevent her arms from falling off. She knew it wasn't real, that it had just been Unit 02 that had sustained the injuries, but it still felt like if she let go, that her arms would fall to the floor.

Ritsuko looked up from micro-managing Maya. "I don't know. He has almost certainly been absorbed." She paused, before adding casually, "There are a couple of things I can try to decouple him, but you should start looking for a replacement pilot. Just in case."

Misato had to use all her will power to keep her hands by her side, so that she wouldn't punch the scientist.

SMACK.

Ritsuko turned in shock to Asuka, her hand going to her cheek "You get him back! He's not some disposable piece of machinery, he's a human being!" Asuka turned and ran back to entryway where she had been lurking, not quite in the room, but not quite outside, either.

Misato was just turning to follow, to see if there was anything she could do for her other charge, when Maya called out in surprise, "Sempai – the sync ratio from Unit 01 is down to 120 and holding."

"Does that mea..."

Ristuko frowned. She had no idea what was going on, and that bothered her more than anything else had in a very long time. "It means we can eject the plug."

Everybody watched in trepidation as the entry plug was removed from Unit 01. Misato stood directly in front of the stairs going up to the entry plug. Ritsuko tried to watch everything in fascination, even though she had all the data spooling to the main computer, for later analysis.

Asuka sat in the entryway, hugging herself. She wanted to come closer, but if anything went wrong, she didn't want to be there.

Finally, the entry plug opened, and out stepped Shinji.

Asuka relaxed. He was ok.

But he immediately turned to look back inside the entry plug, as a teenage girl stepped out afterwords, holding his hand and smiling at him.

Asuka's world collapsed, and she turned and ran.

/\ PoC /\

"That explains the high sync score – there were two pilots in there." Ritsuko beamed, as the universe made sense again.

Misato on the other hand was not so pleased. "Wait, why was Pilot Sestina in there? And because she was, it prevented Shinji from becoming one with the Evangelion?"

Shinji helped Inia down the ladder, though he himself felt like he had run a marathon. He could barely force his legs to move.

"Ah, crap. Medic! We need medical staff over here right away!" Misato waved a medic who had been helping splint a worker's broken arm over to the pilots.

"I don't know." Ritsuko replied contemplatively, answering Misato's previous question, "Maybe the two of them somehow joined as one, or maybe they split the synchronization between the two of them. It is a fascinating question, but I just don't have enough data to answer it as yet."

"They appear dehydrated and suffering from exhaustion," The medic pronounced, "I'll send up a pair of gurneys to take them to medical." Taking pilots to medical had become almost routine. The poor kids came back beat up, physically or emotionally, almost every time.

Misato made sure that both pilots were comfortable on their gurneys as they were wheeled away before turning back to Ritsuko. "Could there be some sort of cross-contamination between the two of them? They seemed very.. close."

"Maybe it was just love at first sight?" chimed in Maya.

Misato gave her a look, "Have you met Shinji? He's shy to the point of being antisocial. And I know that he's never met pilot Sestina before a couple of days ago." Misato paused pensively, "though he has a gallant streak a mile wide. Like how he's always been so supportive of Asuka. Maybe her being injured in the the Thirteenth angle incident triggered that in him."

"I will check on cross contamination. The problem is that I don't know how deeply they were synchronized. The monitors we have are all calibrated for one person, and the assumption that a second person would most likely hinder, or at best, slightly help the primary pilot. But is that what happened here? In that case there is very good likelihood of contamination. Or did they somehow, against all reason, share the synchronization? If that happened, they will be minimally effected by the experience." Ritsuko's eyes gleamed as she scribbled questions on her note pad.

"Just so that we are clear, the pilots are under my authority. And they are not to be experimented on, or tested excessively. Understood?"

"Yes, yes," Ritsuko deflated slightly, "You're right, we have to keep them combat ready. But we will also need to keep an eye on them, see if they experience any disorientation or synesthesia.

/\ PoC /\

Monolith 01 lit up, "explain yourself, Ikari"

Lights flickered on over the other monoliths, all surrounding Gendo, who stood with his hands clenched behind his back. He was in the conference room with the rest of the SEELE committee, reporting on the latest Angel. As the end of the prophesy drew close, the old men were becoming increasingly anxious.

"There is nothing to explain. The Angels are becoming more aggressive, and this latest one had penetrated deeper into the geofront than anticipated, but it was stopped without deviating from the scenario."

"And what of the dual piloting of the Evangelion?" Asked Monolith 03 querulously.

"What of it?" Gendo asked blandly.

"Why were we not informed of this development?"

"We were still in the experimental stage. Had this not been an emergency situation, we would not have deployed the dual configuration." Gendo replied calmly. There was no way in hell he was gong to admit that he had been completely blindsided by his son's little stunt. When swimming with sharks, you always had to keep your cool. And bring chum to distract them. "Gentlemen, I have a lot of work to do to prepare for the next Angel. If you have any further questions, vice commander Fuyutsuki will be more than happy to answer them."

And he turned and walked out of the room. The committee knew that everything was going according to the plan, and that it was in large part due to his efforts. There was no need to waste further time with them. All in all, this had turned out much better than he had feared. The Scrolls had described this angel as the 'angel of might', and he had been expecting severe damage to Tokyo-3 and to NERV. And that would have led the old men of SEELE to cause trouble. But this was almost normal.

Fuyutsuki-sensai would be able to deal with the details.

/\ PoC /\

Asuka was laying bed. She wasn't certain what time it was, but it was dark. Her eyes were closed, but she wasn't asleep. She hadn't slept yet tonight.

It was happening again.

Asuka rolled over and punched her pillow.

/\ PoC /\

It wasn't until that evening that Shinji was released from the hospital and allowed to return home.

"How are you doing?" Misato asked, "Asuka is pretty anxious about you as well."

Asuka glared at Shinji "No, I knew that the mighty Shinji would be fine," and slammed her door shut.

Shinji was too tired to worry about anything. He just staggered to his room and fell into bed.

"Asuka," Misato called through the door, "You aren't being fair. Shinji has gone to great lengths to support you, and now he needs our support. Please help him as he recovers from his ordeal."

Asuka fumed, ' _his ordeal. He was in there with that girl. It was supposed to be the two of us piloting the Evangelion together. But instead, out of nowhere, this... girl shows up.'_ Asuka didn't know what to say. So many thoughts were bubbling inside her, fighting to get out. Shinji had betrayed her. Just like everybody else. And that girl, with her bleached blond hair. Who came out of nowhere. If he had made a pass at Hikari, that she could have understood. She would have been furious, but that would have at least made sense. But this girl appeared out of nowhere. It was like an ax falling from the sky.

She should just die.

/\ PoC /\

"Ok, lets see how well this goes." Ritsuko commented and hit the switch to begin the test. It was a regular harmonics test, except they were using the actual entry plugs. And Shinji and Inia were both synchronizing with unit 01.

 _'Inia, can you hear me?'_ Shinji sent.

 _'Yes. But is it ok to be communicating in here? I do not trust that Ritsuko woman.'_ Inia had had enough of being a lab rat in her previous world. Being a child soldier was far preferable. That way, only the enemy was trying to kill you. And you had a fair chance of killing them first.

 _'I don't think that she can detect us talking like this.'_ Shinji made sure that the entry plug camera was covered by the band aid he had brought specifically for that purpose and reached out to hold Inia's hand.

"Shinji – something is blocking the camera. Can you see if there is something on it?" Maya radioed.

"Sorry." Shinji replied. He left the band aid where it was.

"Well, you will be happy to know that at least your sync score is good: it's holding stead at 120 percent with both of you. That's pretty good."

 _'You know, we can't keep them from finding out,'_ Inia sent.

 _'I just don't want to be observed like a bug on a microscope slide.'_ Shinji replied. He finally had something good in his life, and he knew that his father would find some way to destroy it if he found out.

The two of them continued the sync test like that.

/\ PoC /\

It had been a week since the fourteenth angel, and some things had returned to normal. Dinner at the Misato residence was not one of them. Physically, the damage had faded from view, but Asuka disappeared into her room as soon as she got back from school on the days they didn't have Harmonics testing.

"Hello, sorry I'm late!" Shinji pronounced cheerfully as he rushed in the door, "I'll go make dinner." It was almost 6. He had been coming home late all week.

"None for me – I'm going out for dinner." Misato replied as she walked out of her room, putting an earring in.

"With Mr Kaji again?"

"So what's wrong with that?" she asked defensively. She felt vaguely guilty for spending all her free time with him. She suspected that it was disrupting her ability to pay attention to her charges. But this was the first time in so long that she was actually happy. And Shinji was very responsible – he could take care of Asuka for a little while while she took some time for herself.

"Nothing at all. I'm glad your happy." Shinji replied. It made spending all his time with Inia easier. Besides, any other response would be hypocritical of him.

Misato nodded and grabbed her pocket book as she headed out the door. "I'll be back by 9."

"Uhm, Asuka?" Shinji asked through the door, "what do you want me to make?"

"Dinner," came the terse reply.

Shinji considered if he should ask for elucidation, but she sounded pretty angry. _'I really should talk to her about us.'_ But that was one topic he wasn't yet brave enough to face. He could battle giant aliens bent on world destruction, but he wasn't ready to confront one teenage girl and tell her... what? That he was breaking up with her? She already knew that. Explain why? She wouldn't believe him. Apologize? She would just yell at him.

/\ PoC /\

"Asuka, Dinner is ready." Shinji repeated. There was no response again. "Come out. We need to talk." Shinji called through the door. It was time to face the music.

The door slammed open and the redhead glowered out. "WHAT."

"Look, I don't know what you were expecting..."

"I was expecting that my boyfriend would stay faithful to me. That he wouldn't go off chasing after the first petty girl he saw."

"I'm not chasing after pretty girls."

"Then what do you call that Sestina? You're spending all your time with her."

"We're friends. Like the two of us are friends." Shinji wussed out.

"No, we aren't. You don't get to be 'friends' with two girls like that."

"We aren't dating. She's just a friend. I also care for you, I don't want you to be angry." Shinji whined.

"Well, it's too late for that."

Which is when their cell phones went off.

/\ PoC /\

"We're not certain what the capabilities of this new Angel are." The four pilots were assembled in the main control room, looking at the monitor showing something that most closely resembled a giant, glowing butterfly. Misato was again in charge. "You will sortie as usual. Asuka you will be on the left flank, Shinji and Sestina, you will be in unit 01, on the right. Rei, you will stay close to base as backup. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am!" the pilots ran to their respective units.

"Do you find it freaky how Shinji and Inia never talk to each other when they are in the Evangelion?" Maya asked as the Evangelions were moved over to the elevators.

"Maybe they don't have anything to talk about. Or maybe they just don't really like each other." Shigeru commented as he adjusted the sensors focused on the Angel.

"They spend hours together in sync testing, and they somehow coordinate themselves well enough to double their synchronization score."

"Maybe they're telepaths." Shigeru replied off hand.

Maya paused, before calling over to Ritsuko, "Sempai? Is that possible?"

"Damned if I know. Pay attention to what you are doing – we'll figure out the mystery of Shinji and Inia later."

"Maybe they bonded and became one during the fourteenth angel incident."

"Negative – we determined there was no cross contamination. Now do your job, and stop shipping the pilots!" Ritsuko snapped.

"Yes, ma'am. Asuka's sync score has become borderline." Maya replied, "But she's still high enough for good functionality."

"I'm in position. Now what?" Asuka pronounced, "the Angel is directly above me, but it is out of range."

"Hold and see."

"Ma'am – there is an energy spike from the Angel!"

"YEAAH!" two screams echoed out.

"A beam of some sort has hit Evangelion 02. We are not reading any thermal or kinetic effect."

"What's happening to Asuka? Why is she screaming?" Misato demanded.

"Misato!" Shinji radioed in a panic, "Inia just passed out."

"Plot Sestina's vitals read as nominal," Maya replied.

"Aaag!" Asuka opened fire with her pallet rifle, spraying the air with rounds that rained down on the surrounding hills.

"Asuka retreat to the elevator!"

/\ PoC /\

 _Asuka saw her mother again. She was cradling her favorite doll from when she was a child, and singing lullabies to it._

" _Mama?"_

" _There, there Asuka, it will all be all right," She reassured the rag doll, stroking it's back._

" _Mother. I am over here," Asuka pleaded, but her mother ignored her, instead talking to the doll._

/\ PoC /\

"Asuka?" There was just sobbing coming over the radio. Misato switched channels, "Shinji, grab Unit 02 and drag it out of the beam."

As Unit 01 darted forward and made contact with the red Evanglion, it spasmed, stopping with Unit 02 clenched in its arms.

/\ PoC /\

Shinji stood in the background, watching as _Asuka tried to get close to Kaji, "You know, you're the only man I need." she proclaimed, looking intently at him. She didn't say it, but Shinji felt her fear and anxiety bleeding out_

 _Kaji laughed and ruffled her hair. "You should look for someone your own age."_

The scene faded into Misato's apartment, and now a disembodied Shinji was watching Asuka try to strike up a conversation with a Shinji seated on the couch. He recognized the scene - it was last Tuesday, and he had been in a rush to finish his homework so that he could visit Inia. He barely said two words to Asuka. After he left, she sat on her bed and curled her knees into her chest, not moving.

/\ PoC /\

"Neither Evangelion is responding. Pilot Sestina appears to be unconscious, and Ikari and Sohryu are awake, but non-responsive." Ritsuko informed Misato.

"Commander, permission to requisition the particle cannon" Misato turned and look up at the commander's throne, almost out of reach of regular people. Kind of like the Angel.

"Negative. Order Rei to retrieve the spear of Longinus."

"Is that really necessary?" asked vice commander Fuyutsuki.

"It is the only weapon that will guaranty a kill before the other Evas are permanently damaged."

/\ PoC /\

 _Asuka watched as Misato spent all her time joking with Shinji. Not that she wanted Misato to act that way with her, but Misato was totally ignoring her._

Kaji ignored her, talking only to Misato.

Shinji ignored her. He didn't think she knew, but he was spending all his time with that Sestina girl.

Asuka curled into fetal ball.

/\ PoC /\

"Direct hit!" The spear pieced right through the core of the angel, which detonated

/\ PoC /\

The parade of images flashing through Shinji's mind stopped, and he realized he was still floating in his cockpit. He was muzzy headed, and overwhelmed by the intensity of emotions that he had experienced second hand.

 _'I need to help Asuka.'_

He clutched his knees to his chest as he dispassionately watched Inia's body lolling, strapped into her pilot chair.


	10. Chapter 10

"Pilot Sestina synchronization score has dropped dramatically since the fifteenth Angel, and in the dual synchronization test, she actually reduced Shinji's score." Ritsuko reported to Gendo. Standing in front of his desk always made her feel like she about to be disciplined: the dungeon-dark illumination, the sever headmaster pose, the imposing desk.

But they were not alone, so she pulled herself together. Later.

"Hm. Suspend her. We don't need defective pilots. Especially where she had just been an unexpected bonus, and is not actually critical to the scenario."

"Ah, commander – I think it would be better to call it a medical leave, for her to recover," the vice commander stepped forward from the background shadows that always cloaked Gendo's office. "That would be... more humane."

"What about pilot Sohryu? Her sync score has also fallen precipitously."

"She may still be useful, but we should activate another plot, in case she continues to deteriorate."

/\ PoC /\

Shinji sat at the dinner table alone. Misato hadn't even bothered to call to say she would be late. And he had no clue where Asuka was. He still hadn't worked up his courage to talk to her. But he really needed to.

He went over to the computer and called up the class directory. "Hello, Hikari?" He dialed the Horaki household.

"One sec, I'll get her." A young girlish voice replied before calling into the distance, "Hikari, your boyfriend is on the phone!"

Shinji waited in embarrassment for several minutes, until finally, the breathless response came, "Toji?"

"No, it's Shinji. Is Asuka there?"

"She left about an hour ago. I don't know where she went. I'm kinda worried about her – she was very quiet. Did something happen between the two of you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it used to be that all she talked about was you. Then, a couple of weeks ago she tells me that the two of you are dating, but not to let anybody know. And now – nothing."

"I don't think we were that serious."

"Maybe you weren't, but she was," came the stern reply. "You need to talk to her."

"I know. That's why I am looking for her."

"I will let you know if she calls."

The next day, Asuka wasn't in school. Shinji resolved to go look for her. As school let out, Inia texted, 'are we going to hang out?'

'Sorry. no. I have something to do.'

He felt bad - they hadn't spent much time together in the past couple of day, but this was important. Also, whenever he saw her, he remembered how much her presence hurt Asuka. It was like he was remembering Asuka's emotions, especially her pain.

/\ PoC /\

Asuka sat in the bathtub of the condemned building. It had been badly damaged in one of the earlier battles, and part of the wall was torn off, so she could see the skyline from her spot.

 _'Nobody gives a damn about me.'_ She again contemplated the shards of broken mirror laying on the sink. They were very jagged.

/\ PoC /\

Inia gave up – this was the third time she'd called Shinji, but he hadn't picked up.

Her head still throbbed from that telepathic attack, and her empathic sense was stunted. It was like she had sat in front of a jet engine – she could barely 'hear' anything. It was scary. She didn't know what people's moods were. She sometimes couldn't even tell when somebody was approaching her. She had spent the first couple of days after she was released from the hospital hiding in her room. But she was coming to terms with it a little now.

But Shinji was ignoring her, and that was scary in a different way. She wasn't certain where the other refugees from BETA earth were. Cryska called, but she was still in Geneva.

She hadn't realized to what extent Shinji had become the anchor in her life until he wasn't there.

And now, she was on medical leave. It was like all of her moorings to the outside world were slipping free, and she was a ship that had come adrift.

"Um, hello? Are you Inia Sestina?" Inia whirled in surprise to see a white haired boy smiling at her.

/\ PoC /\

"Rei, Have you seen Asuka?" Shinji asked as the quiet girl as they left their latest training session.

Rei paused and nodded, "Yesterday, on my way home, she passed by near apartment." and gave her fellow pilot the address.

"Thanks," Shinji walked off quickly.

/\ PoC /\

Shinji raced through the desolate streets. This part of Tokyo-3 had never been fully completed, and after the damage it had sustained from the battle with the fourth Angel, it had been completely abandoned.

The young plot wasn't certain how he expected to find Asuka – he really hadn't thought that far ahead. He just knew that he had to find her and help her.

/\ PoC /\

"How do you know who I am?" Inia asked guardedly. It was really uncomfortable talking to somebody she didn't know with her emapthy not working - she had no sense of this person at all.

"Your famous. I saw a news article about your rescue from the Beta Earth, and so I really wanted to meet you," He held out his hand to shake, "I'm Kaworu. I just transferred to Tokyo-3 because of work."

"Oh. It is nice to meet you" Inia recovered some of her usual cheer. "Do you know your way around the city? I could show you around." Meeting this boy might actually be a good thing: keeping busy would help keep her mind off of her problems.

"I would like that."

/\ PoC /\

Shinji was just staring out the second floor balcony of an abandoned apartment building in the forlorn hope of seeing Asuka when his phone went off. It was another Angel. _'Why don't they stop.'_ Shinji was frustrated. The Angels just wouldn't give them any peace. He had important things he had to do. He had to rescue Asuka. But instead, he had the Angel to deal with.

As he called in for a pickup by Section Two, he asked the operator, "Do you know where Asuka is?"

"Sorry, no – her cell phone is back at the Katsuragi apartment, but she is not there."

Shinji shrugged. He wold have to deal with once crisis at a time.

/\ PoC /\

Inia looked on as Kaworu took the call on his cell "I have to go. I really enjoyed our time together, and I hope we can do this again." The two of them were in downtown Tokyo-3. It was less crowded than it used to be, as many people had moved away due to the Angel threat, but a surprising number were willing to risk it, for the jobs. But as a result, it was a very young city, with few families except those of senior NERV staff present.

"Yes, we can get together sometime again. Where are you going? Maybe I can go with you?" Inia asked suspiciously. Kaworu was nice, but there was something off about him. While she was having a hard time sensing anybody empathically right now, he was a complete blank, like he wasn't there. That was the first time something like this had happened, and she was curious as to why. Was it her damaged sense, or did this boy have a telepathic ability as well? She hadn't asked, as she wasn't certain she wanted to reveal that much of herself to him.

"I wasn't completely forthright with you – I am a pilot for the Evangelion program as well. I just wanted to enjoy your company without having all that baggage involved." He smiled disarmingly.

Inia nodded understanding. It was hard to stay suspicious of the easy going guy, "Oh, ok. I'll ride with you to NERV."

/\ PoC /\

As the three pilots gathered in the command center to be briefed, Misato arrived looking slightly rumpled. "Rei, Shinji, please greet Kaworu – he was just added to the roster as a reserve pilot. I apologize for the rushed introductions, but with Asuka missing, we will have to move him up to active status right away."

"He's going to be piloting Unit 02?"

"I would prefer to be the copilot in Unit 01," Kaworu volunteered.

"Sorry, but without practice, that could end up causing more harm than good." Misato countered, "besides, we need you in Unit 02." She switched on the display. "This is another angel that appears to just be hanging there in the sky. We will advance cautiously. Ritsuko has installed dampers into the Evangelion's armor that should prevent a repeat of the sort of telepathic assault we had last time." She hoped. Ritsuko had admitted that she wasn't exactly certain that it would work. It did block the A10 connectors, but those were like a squirt gun compared to the fire hose the Angel had used.

/\ PoC /\

The three Evangelions moved, staying under cover as they advanced. The Angel glowed, and it seemed like there was a faint hum coming off of it as it hung - a giant white ring, or possible an ouroboros - directly above the heart of Tokyo-3.

"On the count of three, all Eva open fire" Misato began , "One, two.."

The Angel split apart into a coil and darted down like a snake, spearing into Unit 01. Or at least it tried to, but Shinji threw himself to the side, so it brushed by. But before he could recover his feet, it whipped around and attacked again.

Shinji managed to get Unit 01's hand between his face and the Angel, but the thing latched onto his palm and coiled around his arm. Shinji screamed in pain as he dropped his rifle and scrabbled for his progressive knife.

Rei charged, her cumbersome sniper rifle at the ready, while Unit 02 tried to grab the other side of the quickly lashing Angel.

"Get closer to Unit 01," Misato ordered Kaworu. "It's not moving as much there"

Both Eva converged.

Shinji got his progressive knife out and jammed it into the thing in his palm.

Just as the other two Eva got close, the Angel released its hold, darting at Unit 00, which wasn't as fast as Unit 01 had been. The Angel attached itself to prototype and now it was Rei's turn to scream in pain. Vein-like rivulets pulsed on the Angel and into the Evangelion, like they were injecting something.

"Unit 00 is contaminated." Shigeru proclaimed.

"Deploy anti-bodies to counter!" Ritsuko commanded.

Shinji lunged for the Angel, but the other (free side) smashed into him, piercing his shoulder.

Shinji cut at it with his knife. "Kaworu! close in and kill it!" Shinji yelled.

The Angel realized that it was trapped, and it released from Unit 01, but Shinji's free hand grasped onto it. The Angel was still strong enough to jerk the Eva hither and yon, but its motion was greatly restricted.

"Contamination is still spreading. It is compromising the neural link"

Finally, Unit 02 managed to grab the middle of the snake-like thing, but it seemed like Kaworu wasn't certain what to do next.

"Stab the core," Misato commanded.

Unit 00 was now covered in bulging veins, and they had started to creep up Rei's body as well, up to her face.

Finally, Kaworu stabbed the Angel, and it collapsed in on itself, like a balloon that had been stuck with a needle.

"Everybody ok?" Misato asked.

"Ma'am, Unit 00 is still contaminated, and the contamination is spreading. Some part of the Angel must still be alive inside." Maya said breathlessly.

"Neural links are collapsing!"

"Has the contamination spread to Rei as well?" Gendo asked from up on his balcony.

"I'm not certain, sir, but I suspect it has."

Gendo thumbed on his com. "Rei, how are you feeling?"

"I am in pain," came the gasping response, "And I.. I am not certain what I am seeing."

"Rei, I need you to concentrate. " Gendo spoke intently, leaning close over the microphone, "Activate the self destruct."

"What?" Shinji yelped, as Unit 01 staggered back to its feet. "Don't do it. Eject. I know we were never close, but I value you as a friend. If you die, I will miss you. Eject now!"

"Rei," Gendo continued calmly. "pull down the lever and slide it to the left. Now flip the three switches. Do it now."

"Yes, sir."

"Charges primed," announced Makoto in a detached voice. He almost couldn't understand what he was saying. "Self destruct in three seconds"

"NO!" Shinji staggered towards Unit 00, before he was tackled by Unit 02, which raised it's AT field.

BADOOM!

Unit 01 struggled to get up, "You murderer. We're all toys for you. You don't care, not even about Rei. I'm going to kill you. You bastard!"

"Ritsuko, Force-eject the third child"

The entry plug shot out of Unit 01, barely missing Unit 02 before deploying a parachute, to slam into the ground. Much of the area around it had been decimated by Unit 00 explosion, destroying any building that had not been lowered in Tokyo-3.

"Arrest the Third Child for insubordination and threatening a superior officer."

/\ PoC /\

"Do you know if Shinji is ok?" Inia asked. She and Kaworu were sitting on small boat dock over the lake, dibbling their feet in the water.

"He will be, the commander will let him out of the brig soon. That is one thing I have observed – the commander may seem harsh, but he is doing what he believes is in Shinji's best interests."

"Really?" Inia looked skeptical. She had 'felt' the commander, and he was all sharp edges and hard surfaces. He hadn't struck her as very caring, but she had only met him in passing once. And maybe Kaworu was more reliable source of information than her memory.

Inia kicked he feet in the water, enjoying the sensation. She felt very disconnected right now. Piloting had been her life, but now that she was on medical leave, she had no connection to the outside world. She wasn't enrolled in school: She hadn't had an official education past primary school - Cryska used to tutor her privately, but the Russian command didn't see the need for her to have an education beyond piloting TSFs - and she barely knew anybody at NERV, having been working there for a very brief time before her medical leave. It was like she was living in a bubble.

Cryska was one of her few connections left, and she wasn't certain when she would be able to come visit.

"I spoke to Ritsuko – she said that you were going to be tested again at the end of this week, to see if your ability to sync with an Eva had recovered." Kaworu suspected it had become more pressing with Shinji being in the brig.

"Yeah." Inia brightened. "Let's go to the mall, we can get some ice cream there." Hanging out with the strange teen had become the high point of her otherwise flattened emotional landscape.

As they entered the crowded mall, Kaworu mentioned, "despite how many people there are here, each person is on their own. It is remarkable how isolated people can be, even in a crowd. It would be nice if everybody could lower their barriers and join together as one."

Inia looked surprised, but then nodded, "Yeah. I feel that way too. Back on my Earth, what you call BETA Earth, people really didn't reach out to one another either. Even though all of humanity was fighting against the BETA, our governments were still scheming against each other, trying to get an advantage."

Once they go their ice cream, they sat on a bench and watched the people stream by. Since the mall was close to the school, a lot of teenagers were in the crowd. _'I imagine that some of these are Shinji's friends.'_ Inia realized that she couldn't identify Kensuke or Toji or any of the other people Shinji had mentioned in their conversations.

/\ PoC /\

Shinji looked up as the door opened on the dank, ill lit room. "Commander Ikari says that you are free to leave." It was Misato, "but you are permanently suspended from piloting." Given that it came from his father, Shinji suspected the 'free to leave' actually referred to NERV, or possibly all of Japan.

"I convinced the Commander not to fire you, so there is still hope." She smiled, but it lacked her usual cheer.

"I don't really care about that right now. I think we need to find Asuka." Shinji had spent the time while imprisoned dwelling on his personal failures, and Asuka was at the top of the list. He was supposed to help her. He actually kind of liked her, but instead she was depressed, hiding from people somewhere in the ruined part of Tokyo-3. And it was his fault.

Misato nodded "I'll help. I just went off duty." As they headed up to the parking garage, she added, "I feel kind of responsible for what's going on with Asuka. I should have paid more attention to her, to both of you, instead of doing my own thing." That being her code for spending all of her nights with Kaji. Misato pealed out of NERV, heading to the section of Tokyo-3 that Section 2 thought Asuka might be haunting.

There was a silence in the car for a few moments before Shinji quietly contradicted her, "I don't think it's your fault. It's mine. I don't know if you knew, but Asuka and I, we started dating back a few weeks ago. But then I ran into.. an old friend, and we really hit it off, so I kind of broke up with Asuka."

This was a lot for Misato to process, so she went for the most relevant part first, "How did Asuka take it?"

"Um, I didn't really tell her." Shinji looked down at his hands in embarrassment. "I was planning to, but she disappeared."

"Hmm," Misato kept driving. "Who is the girl? Inia?" When Shinji didn't deny it, she continued, "How is she a 'old friend', when you met her for the first time a couple of weeks ago?"

Now it was Shinji's turn to silent. Finally, he whispered, "Don't tell Ritsuko, but Inia is a telepath. And she somehow linked with me when she was in her world, and we started talking. We talked almost every day since last summer."

"That's why the two of you had such a high sync score in the Eva, together." The weirdness of the revelation didn't faze Misato – it was no stranger than anything else going on around NERV, and it finally made a lot other stuff make sense.

"Yeah, but it's weird – since she came to our earth, we only can communicate telepathically in the entry plug."

/\ PoC /\

"Asuka!" Shinji yelled. It was his third day of searching, and it was starting to get dark now. Misato had been able to help search that first day - the following morning she had to go back to work. But he kept going from building to building. This one was promising - the rubble was disturbed. He pushed his way in, following the tracks up to a second story bathroom.

"Asuka!" He was surprised to see that there was actually somebody there.

The redhead turned to face him from her seat inside the empty bathtub. "What do you want?" the voice didn't have any anger in it. It didn't have anything in it.

"I was looking for you. I looked all over." As Shinji stepped in and enveloped the girl in a hug, she stiffened in shock.

"You came all this way to tell me you were dumping me."

"'No. I want to make it official . We'll tell everybody that we are boyfriend and girlfriend." His own preferences didn't matter. Asuka needed him. And she was a good person.

As Shinji pulled back to look at Asuka, he realized that his shirt was covered in blood."You're bleeding!" He realized that there was a deep gash on her arm that was oozing blood.

"I cut myself." Asuka explained.

Shinji pulled off his button down shirt and tore a strip from it. "Apply pressure there," he wrapped her arm tight. "Hold it in place, I'm going to call an ambulance."

"No. I'm not leaving."

Shinji lowered the phone.

"Ok."

"Ok?" Asuka asked.

Shinji sat down, leaning against the outside of the tub, "In that case, I'm going to stay here too." He had taken responsibility for Asuka back when they first met, so he was going to see this through. No running away.

/\ PoC /\

It was full dark as Inia and Kaworu sat down to have dinner. Inia hadn't planned to spend all day with this guy she barely knew, but he was very easy to talk to (and she had discovered that she hated being alone). He was very calm, and he had a positive outlook. Hanging out with him was almost like having her empathic sense back. Which was why she had invited him over to her apartment to have dinner. It was just take out – she wasn't much of a cook.

"Thank you for the meal. Eating with others truly is a pleasure."

Inia smiled. "It's nice to have company." She felt conflicted. Despite how easy and pleasant Kaworu was, something about him still felt wrong. Maybe it was just that he wasn't Shinji. "It's getting late, and I want to call it a day, if you don't mind."

"I was hoping I could stay the night."

Inia's smile faltered. As a soldier, Inia was familiar with the relaxed sexual mores of many of her colleagues, but this was not her. "I am sorry, I am not interested in you like that," she replied brusquely.

"I apologize," Kaworu explained breezily, "You misunderstood a simple request for companionship as something else. There would be no harm in it."

Inia smiled and showed him the door. "I do not know what you intended, but I think you should go now." That one moment had crystallized something in Inia's mind. He was too pushy, and his superior attitude was not appreciated. Shinji would never do something like this. It was with a restored sense of self that she closed the door behind the white haired teen.

Just as the door to her apartment clicked shut, the door in her mind clicked open: her empathic sense surged back with her restored confidence. Inia's knees almost buckled. She hadn't admitted it to herself, but she was scared that if she was able to sense emotions again, that she would get hurt, like with the 15th Angel. But the alternative was worse.

As she stood there, allowing all the sensations wash over her – it was like running her hand over a bunch of objects, feeling them – furry and warm, or hard and smooth – when she sensed an abnormality. She had felt it only once or twice before.

Like touching a hole where there should have been an object.

An Angel. And it was close by.

Inia grabbed her phone and ran.

/\ PoC /\

"So this is what it takes to get you stay with me." Asuka whispered, staring at out across the city from the bathtub.

"No, I.. I do like you, and I do want to be with you."

"Liar. You love your white haired alien girl. The one you piloted with."

"I.. Inia is a friend. And I do like her. But it wasn't fair of me to abandon you just because I'm friends with her... I have a responsibility.. I promised I would be there for you. So I will."

Asuka finally turned and looked towards Shinji. She could only see part of him, reflected in the broken mirror above the sink as he sat on the floor leaning against the tub. "Are you?" She paused, "Are you going to stay with me no matter what pretty girls show up, or how infatuation strikes?"

"Yes."

"Go away. I don't want you."

"I don't care."

"I don't want somebody who sees me as a burden, as this pathetic girl that they need to be responsible for."

Shinji opened his mouth, but he couldn't figure out how to articulate what he felt. So he continued to sit.

/\ PoC /\

WHOOP!

WHOOP!

WHOOP!

The alarms were blaring, and the staff in the command center went scampering for their stations. "Ma'am, we have a blue signal on base!"

Misato spun around and ran to peer over Makoto's shoulder, "What? Where?"

"Not certain – the sensor aren't designed to be that accurate inside the geofront.

"Call the pilots!" Misato commanded. "Where are they right now?"

Maya pressed a few buttons, "Rei is still in intensive care. Asuka has not reported in – her cell phone is at her apartment. Shinji has not reported in. His cell phone is turned off."

"Why don't we have any better way of recalling the pilots?" Misato fumed. "Send Section 2 to Shinji's last known location."

"I've located the blue signal – it is heading down, towards Terminal Dogma."

"Close all intervening bulkheads, buy us some time!" Misato ordered.

"Major, Let me try." Inia ran in, out of breath.

"Her sync scores were negligible after the incident with the 15th angel," Ritsuko reminded Misato.

"We don't have a lot of options here." Misato turned back to Inia, "Suit up. You're on."

/\ PoC /\

Shinji was leaning back against the tub when he felt a sense of urgency from Inia. It didn't have any words, just a feeling. _'I wonder if she's in the Evangelion?'_ Shinji turned his phone back on. "Huh. Hey, Asuka, there is another Angel attack. Misato called for us to report in."

"So?" Asuka paused, and then added, "Why don't you go. You're the responsible one."

Shinji sighed in exasperation and rubbed his head, "Asuka, we both need to go. If we don't stop it, it could lead to the end of the world."

Suddenly, Asuka was yelling "Maybe I WANT to see the world end. Have you considered that? Let it all come crashing down!"

"I want you to pilot with me. In unit 01."

Asuka paused, before giving a weak laugh, "that's the lamest pick up line I have ever heard."

"Should I make the call?" Shinji held up his phone as he looked questioningly at Asuka.

Asuka sighed and stood up. "Do it."

/\ PoC /\

Inia fidgeted in her plug suit. She never did like them – they weren't padded like her flight suit, so she could feel every bump and cranny of her pilot chair. (Well technically Shinji's pilot chair). Which was probably the point, but still. The LCL began to pour in, and she had the usual moment of panic before she got control of herself.

"Unit 01 activated and ready to go."

"Her sync is back in the mid 60's." Ritsuko pronounced, "Whatever happened with the 15th, she's gotten over it."

"Pilot Sestina, head towards the back freight elevator. That should bring you most of the way down.

"I am moving to intercept," Unit 01 walked over to the specified elevator shaft. It had a bulky platform – it as obviously not one of the high speed elevators used to launch the Evangelions to the surface - and it was surrounded by the detritus of Evangelions: sections of armor, a case of progressive knives, ammunition, etc.

"Major, raise the elevator above the floor level," Inia commanded.

As the elevator went up, Unit 01 used its progressive knife to cut a length of cable from a spool that was sitting nearby. Once the platform was high enough, Inia looped the cable around the main support column of the elevator and jumped into the shaft. Unit 01 slid down in a controlled free fall.

As soon as she landed, Misato broadcast. "The Angel is to your left, right by the doors to Terminal Dogma." Her voice came in staticky, broken, as the transmission was bouncing around inside the rocky corridor.

Unit 01 turned and ran through the Evangelion sized tunnel. As it did, all communication to the surface was cut off. The tunnel came to an abrupt end at a human-sized door that was far too small for the massive Eva. Ina could still sense the Angel from the other side.

Unit 01 pulled back and smashed through the wall, into a giant chamber dominated by ornate double doors. They appeared to be made of some bronze colored metal, with an intricate knot-like pattern carved along the edges, and the center panels dominated by what looked like a tree made from intertwined bodies. As strange as that was, Inia was a trained soldier, so she didn't stop to gawk.

"Hello," Hanging at head height to the Evangelion, in front of the doors, was Kaworu. "I see you came."

Inia stopped in shock. She could tell that this was the Angel. "Who are you?" Inia demanded. Kaworu had seemed a little strange, but nice. How could he be here? "Why are you doing this?"

"'This?' Do you even know what 'this' is?" He asked mildly. He gestured, and the doors began to slide open with a complex musical tone, "I will trigger paradise. All people will be joined as one. There will be no more pain, no more anger, no more confusion. Is that not what you want? Isn't that what you seek to have with Shinji?"

Inia stops, confused. Kaworu floated into the room. It was one shock after another. The bottom of the huge grotto was filled with LCL, which was dripping out of a giant, seven eyed humanoid that was pinned, crucified, to the wall with giant spears. Another Angel?

"What the..?"

"This is Adam, and.… oh." Kaworu stopped, momentarily abashed. "Actually, this is Lilith. But that does not greatly alter anything. I will bring an end to everything. To suffering, to anger, to time itself."

"No!" Unit 01 stepped into the LCL and grabbed Kaworu. The Evangelion's hand wrapped around his entire body, leabing just one hand free.

"No? But what about joining with Shinji?"

"I... I want to be with Shinji, but not like that." Inia replied tentatively. Kaworu was making everything confusing. Or maybe she had been confused from the very start. With the way her relationship with Shinji had begun, she never really had to think about what it was, or where it was going. "Each person being separate is what makes people interesting."

Inia decided: their telepathic rapport was enough. "If I was that close with everybody, then it all becomes meaningless. We would all be the same." Unit 01 tried to pull Kaworu out of the room, but he did not budge.

"Having observed you Lillim, I suspect you may be right. But I have a duty to my brethren." He shrugged. "If you want to stop it, you will have to kill me." He dropped his AT field.

Inia looked appalled. He spoke of dying so casually. And with the Eva, she could end his life with a slight gesture. But even if he was a little strange, he was still a friend. The idea of killing him like that, like a fly, was nauseating.

Kaworu reached out towards the crucified giant and closed his eyes. The spears began to vibrate loose. The giant's left hand started to reach towards Kaworu.

Unit 01's hand closed spasmodically, crushing the Angel.


	11. Chapter 11

"Hey, Asuka, you ready to go?" Shinji had just come out of the male pilot's locker room and was waiting for Asuka.

"I'm over here, baka," Asuka called from down the corridor, by the coffee vending machine. "You want anything?"

"No, I'm good," Shinji joined the redhead as they set out for home. It was a week since the last Angel attack, and things had returned to a delicate new 'normal'. Nobody would tell Shinji what had happened during the last attack, all he knew was that when he and Asuka had arrive at the geofront, the alert as over.

As to Asuka... they had just finished a dual sync test in Unit 01, and it had not gone well. Their combined score was slightly less than either one alone. But Asuka appeared happy. Or at least not angry.

"So, what are you planning on for dinner?" Asuka asked. At this point cooking had devolved onto Shinji. Asuka's half hearted attempts were just that, and Misato's cooking rated as a biohazard.

"I was thinking of trying something European, I found this recipe on-line for something called Giviklte kroit, And it looks pretty easy, so I was.." Shinji trailed off as they passed Ina. The white haired pilot shuffled out of a room and turned to go in the other direction from them. She didn't even glance up as the other two teens walked past - she looked like her pet dog had just died.

Asuka frowned as Shinji's head pivoted to follow the other girl.

"So what is this stuff? I've never heard of it before." She drew his attention back to where it belonged, on her.

/\ PoC /\

Inia was just approaching the apartment that had been assigned to her when she felt a familiar presence. "Cryska." She pulled herself more upright, and fished out a half-remembered smile.

"Hello, little one," her surrogate older sister greeted her. Standing with her was Yuuya Bridges, one of the other TSF pilots that Shinji had rescued through the Dirac Singularity. "We finally have some time off after all the grilling, so I wanted to come surprise you."

"And I had to tag along," Yuuya smiled. "Are you doing ok? You look kind of down."

Inia felt something in her thaw at the friendly faces, "I'm fine. It's just the drills are really boring, and the people here are not very welcoming." She really didn't want to talk about Kaworu. She still had nightmares from that. And that was saying something, as she had seen BETA eating fellow soldiers (though never anybody she was close to).

"You haven't made any friends?" Cryska asked. She thought Inia had mentioned some, but her life had been so busy that it was hard to keep track.

"Not close ones." Shinji was another topic she didn't want to talk about. He was barely returning her calls, and she hadn't been able to talk to him since the.. incident. Because he was always with Asuka. "Lets go out for dinner – there's a nice little American place down the street.

"Urg. There's only so much McDonald's you can eat." Yuuya countered, "lets go get some raman."

Inia turned to Yuuya in surprise, "I thought you hated everything Japanese?"

He just shrugged, slightly embarrassed, "Cryska likes Japanese food."

/\ PoC /\

"So how long are you here for?" Inia asked with forced cheer as they sat down at the hole in the wall restaurant.

"We have leave for a couple of weeks, and then we're both going to be inducted in the UN Peace-force as test pilots. They are going to try duplicating our TSFs."

"Just like back home, but without the BETA." That caused all three pilots to sit silently for a moment. Yuuya was the only one who still had close friends in the other Earth, but it was a humbling prospect for all of them that they were now free of the BETA threat. "So how is the war against these 'Angels' coming?"

Inia sighed, "it has gotten strange. Not in the least because of what happened with Rei Ayanami." She took a sip of her coke, "I wasn't there, but by all reports she should have died when her Evangelion self destructed, but a couple of weeks later, she walking around, with just a couple of bandages around her arm and over one eye."

"But don't your Evangelions have an ejection mechanism?"

Inia nodded, "Yeah, but she was ejected under adverse conditions: Her Evangelion blew up behind her. With that sort of knocking about, she shouldn't be up and around a couple of days later. She would be lucky to be on life support in an ICU." Inia found that once she started talking, she couldn't stop. She had gotten used to having Shinji to converse with everyday, so having to go so long without talking to anyone was like a huge logjam of words had built up inside her and was now bursting out. "But Rei has always been a strange girl. I can barely get any sense of her – its like the volume on her personality is turned down to a whisper."

/\ PoC /\

"Hey Shinji," the teen in question looked up from eating his lunch. He was sitting with Asuka, watching as the other teens milled around the school green. "We should go say 'hi' to blue girl. It's her first day back in school after almost dying." Asuka gestured towards Rei, who, as usual, was eating alone under a shady tree.

"I guess." Shinji had only so much time in his life for 'projects'. He glanced over at Asuka. "Let's go," he sighed.

Asuka frowned. Shinji had seemed like a nice guy in the beginning, but he had turned out to be a complete spineless dweeb. It's like he didn't really care about anything. Well, that wasn't completely true. He made an effort to care about her, and that was worth a lot of points, as far as Asuka was concerned.

/\ PoC /\

Shinji and Asuka were walking to NERV for training when somebody called out "Shinji!"

Coming towards them was Inia and two others – one was a woman with short white hair, and the other was a guy. Both had a military look to them, though currently they appeared extremely 'off duty': The guy had his arm around the woman, and she looked very proud of this fact.

"Hi. This is my sister, Cryska, and her boyfriend, Yuuya Bridges. I told you she liked him!" Inia bubbled. Shinji nodded. The couple in question looked a little awkward at being called out so directly.

"You were right. From now on I won't doubt you." Shinji smiled, before turning to Cryska "I'm glad that you could come visit – Inia has missed you."

Inia rolled her eyes, "I'm ok. Though I always like to see Cryska. And her new boyfriend!"

"Are you heading in for the live fire exercise?" Shinji asked.

"No, I'm not signed up for that, as I am a Spetstnaz certified marksman, grade II, but I'll walk with you." This was the first chance Inia had to talk to Shinji in days. Somehow, having Cryska and Yuuya around made it work. Asuka still looked aggrieved, but she just walked silently by Shinji's side without trying to tear him away.

/\ PoC /\

The test ran long, and it was almost eight o'clock when Shinji finally changed into his civvies and stumbled out of the locker room, to find Asuka waiting for him.

"Hey, lets head home."

Instead of replying, Asuka leaned against the far wall, staring down at her crossed arms. "We should break up. You don't want to be with me." she blurted out.

"What?" Shinji asked, floored.

"You're here because in your spineless, dweeb-ish fashion, you feel responsible for me, and you are trying to take care of me. I won't deny it's kind of nice, but it's not going to work for a relationship." Asuka pushed off of the wall and walked off. "Good by, Shinji."

Shinji slid down to the floor, at a loss. On the one hand, he felt free at last. On the other, how dare she break up with him!

He leaned his head back against the wall. It had been a long day, first school, then the training, now this. He didn't know what to think. And he hadn't even had dinner yet.

/\ PoC /\

It was shortly after 9 that the alarm began blaring.

"This is not a drill. There are intruders in the geofront. Go to lock down / defend in place."

"Repeat: lock down / defend in place."

Shinji sat up. He had zoned out in front of the pilots locker room. This wasn't the typical Angel alarm, and it wasn't something that he had trained for. He wasn't certain if he should go get back into his pilot uniform or what.

There was the sound of gunfire in the distance.

Shinji turned and ran for the Evangelion cages. He still had no idea what to do, but having a thousand tons of armored fighting machine around him would make him feel more secure. It was too bad that they had been training in the simulators today, so the cages were several levels down instead of just around the corner.

He got as far as the elevator when several men in black military gear came in from a cross corridor.

"I think that's a pilot," one of the men called out as Shinji dove back the way he had come, racing as bullets ricocheted down the corridor. He dove back into the locker room and then scrambled up onto a toilet seat before pushing out a ceiling tile. He had just pulled himself up into the ceiling when the men burst into the room.

"He's up in the ceiling!" they sprayed the ceiling with bullets as Shinji crossed over into the ceiling above the girls changing room, and kept going, scuttling like a crab across the support beams of the ceiling tiles. The walls were solid enough to stop the bullets, so he was free.

Or so he thought.

He heard somebody climb up behind him.

Shinji wasn't certain where he was, but he kicked out one of the ceiling tiles under him and drop down.

It was the simulator lab. He ran across the room, heading for an exit in the far side. He burst out and dropped to the side, in case there were more soldiers there, but the corridor was empty.

Shinji jumped back up and ran over to the first door he saw and dived in. It was a broom closet.

/\ PoC /\

"We have intruders on the lower levels – they must be coming in through the sewers." Makoto announced.

"Ma'am, there are tanks coming in along the ridge." Maya called out when Shigeru interrupted: "We just lost contact with the security station! But the last video I saw showed at least ten tanks and a column of soldiers."

"Section 2, Section 3, repel the intruders." Misato paced. Why did shit always happen when the commander was out? "Where are the pilots? I want to launch the Evas to deal with the tanks."

Everything went dark. "The outside power has been cut," Makoto announced. "We have backup power only."

"We just lost all radio transmission to command." Maya added.

"I will send somebody out to get Asuka and Shinji. Where is Rei?"

"Her phone reported in Terminal Dogma, right before we lost radio."

"There is no way we can get somebody down to her – she's below the level at which the infiltrators are coming in at."

Maya perked up, "Major? Shinji and Asuka had simulator training today. It ran long, and I saw Shinji was still there when I left about fifteen minutes ago."

Misato grabbed a handgun from the weapon locker, "I'm going to go get Shinji. The rest of you, grab weapons and take defensive positions – there's not much you can do without power." And without any pilots.

/\ PoC /\

Misato made her way down the emergency stairs. They were at end of the corridor, almost hidden behind storage lockers. She wanted to run down and get to Shinji as fast she could, but instead she advanced cautiously, gun at the ready. She checked every intersection before crossing. Once, she heard voices, and she went down another floor to get around them – her job was to find Shinji, not engage the enemy.

As she turned one corridor, she saw a flash of red disappear into a room. Advancing carefully, she pushed open the door.

"Asuka?" The red head was holding a broom handle, which she had been about to bring down on Misato's head.

"Oh, thank god. I don't know what's going on, but first there was that ominous announcement over the PA, and then I heard gunfire.." She stepped forward, like she wanted a hug, but couldn't quite bring herself to give one.

Misato gave the teen a quick, one armed hug anyway. "We need to get you over to Unit 02. You will be safe there, and you can do some good."

"What about Shinji?"

Misato frowned, "I'll get him next. My priority is to get you to the cages first." It was the logical thing to do, but it still galled her.

/\ PoC /\

"Rei, it is time to begin," Gendo pronounced as he pulled the glove off of his misshapen hand. The two of them were in Terminal Dogma, standing on a spit of land that jutted into the pool of LCL under the crucified form of the second Angel.

Gendo had led Rei here to finally initiate Third Impact under his terms. The old men were too late.

All of a sudden, another voice rang out. "Step away from her!"

Gendo turned – Ritsuko stood at the entrance to the room, a pistol in her hands.

"Why am I never good enough? I did everything for you, but you treat me like I was nothing, just a tool, and here you are going to try rewriting reality to get Yui back. Why?" Ritsuko demanded.

Gendo shrugged, "because you're not Yui." He pulled out his own pistol and shot her in one fluid motion.

/\ PoC /\

Shinji dropped through the ceiling as the support he was sitting on snapped. He rolled clear of the rubble, but it made a huge clatter, and he twisted his ankle.

"There is somebody over here" came a yell. It didn't sound friendly.

Shinji hobbled over to a staircase and hid underneath, hoping that they wouldn't find him. He still didn't know who 'they' were, but they were heavily armed, and had been chasing him all over NERV for what felt like hours.

He jammed himself as deep under the stairs as he could go, and then tried not to breath, taking tiny sips of air.

Boots approached his hiding spot – it looked like three men, and they were being thorough. Very thorough. One was looking right, one was looking left, and the third was keeping watch.

"There you are," Shinji looked up to see a soldier pointing a rifle at him. "Sorry, kid, no hard feelings." Shinji watched as the solder raised the rifle to fire.

BANG.

BANG BANG.

The third soldier just had enough time to pivot before the bullet took him in the head, above his armor.

Shinji peered out as Inia came walking up, a pair of pistols in her hands. "We need to get out of here."

Shinji stood up and pulled her into a fierce hug, before stepping back and following it up with a kiss.

Inia stepped away. She was still hyped up on adrenaline, but now.. She hadn't expected this. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't deal with Shinji right now. "Later. We need to get out of here."

"I'm sorry for being such a bad friend, for ignoring you" Shinji apologized. He gestured to the three dead soldiers, "I just.. I'm glad I have the opportunity to apologies, and to tell you how important you are to me."

"Later," nevertheless, a smile broke through on her face - for the first time in a long time, everything was right with the world. Now all she needed to do was kill those those so-and-sos who were threatening her Shinji. She reloaded her pistols, a huge grin on her face.

Shinji shook his head, "We should head to the cages – if we can activate Unit 01, that will be the safest place to be."

"Here, take this," Inia pulled a rifle loose from the dead body of one of the soldiers, handing it to Shinji. He looked at it, clearly uncomfortable with looting it off of the dead. "He doesn't need it any more and you do, or his buddies will kill you." Inia held up her pistols, "that's how I got these."

Shinji's mouth pressed into a hard line, but he took the rifle. The two pilots turned and ran towards the elevators leading down to the Evangelion dock.

"Cryska and Yuuya are heading for the heliport – my Berkut TSF is parked there, and they're going to use it to clear a path out of here." Inia explained, before peering cautiously down an intersection and motioning for Shinji to follow. "If they can establish contact with the rest of NERV, we can get people out."

They were almost at the elevator when there was a noise behind them – A trio of soldiers had come in from a side corridor.

"Get to cover!" Inia yelled as she opened up with both pistols, forcing the soldiers to duck back around the corner.

"What cover? It's empty!" Shinji ran the last five feet and hit the button for the elevator before crouching down behind a flimsy trash can.

There was the sound of more gunfire as Inia moved to one side of the hallway, trying to make herself as small a target as possible. One of the enemy soldiers spun around and fell.

A second soldier popped around the other corner and opened fire.

"Aaah!" Ina slammed into the wall as a bullet tore through her stomach. But the soldier who shot her paused too long to inspected his handiwork, and Inia shot him as she slid to the ground.

"Bing" The elevator door slid open.

"Shinji, go."

"NO." Shinji sprayed the far end of the corridor. There was one more soldier there. _'Three shot bursts. No full auto,'_ Shinji fired and took a step forward, then fired again.

The soldier stayed around the corridor, waiting for Shinji to run out of ammo.

Shinji kept advancing. Fire, step, fire.

Finally, Shinji stopped, crouching low.

The soldier whipped around, aiming down the corridor, only to be surprised to see Shinji just five feet away.

BAM!

Shinji checked – there were no more soldiers.

"Go. I'll hold them off from here," Inia gasped.

"Like hell." Shinji pulled her into the elevator.

/\ PoC /\

"Rei, let us continue" Gendo turned away from the prone body of the woman he had been sleeping with and plunged his hand into Rei's chest.

As the Angel on his palm fused with her, Rei gasped in pain, her motions mimicked exactly by the giant figure pinned to the wall behind her.

"And so it begins."

BANG

As Gendo dropped to his knees, Rei looked up over his shoulder in confusion

Ryouji Kaji stepped over Ritsuko's sprawled body, "Sorry about this, kid."

BANG

Rei collapsed, a bullet hole going through Gendo's hand into her heart.

/\ PoC /\

Asuka bared her teeth as her Evangelion rocketed to the surface. She was having a real shit day, and these jerks were coming, attacking her home. She SO needed this now!

She plugged in the power cable and charged the first row of tanks, deflecting their shells with her AT field. She smashed through the first column like a two year old having a temper tantrum on their LEGOs.

The advancing army stopped and began to buckle under her assault. One armored assault vehicle roared forward, heading for her power cable, only to be met by the Berkut TSF coming out of the NERV hanger. The mech's cannon was more than enough to shred the wheeled vehicle..

"UN Berkut-1 to Evangelion, we have your back," Cryska transmitted.

Asuka's grin became wider and more feral, "thank you much!" She flung a tank into missile carrier.

/\ PoC /\

Misato had just reloaded her rifle and was about to set out in search of Shinji when the elevator into the Evangelion docking cages opened up, and the teen in question staggered out, half carrying pilot Sestina.

"Shinji! Are you ok?" As Misato ran over, she evaluated the situation. She pointed to a closet with a red cross on it, "We can get her onto the med-evac gurney."

"No. Nowhere here is safe. Help me get her into the entry plug." Shinji made his way up the stairs leading up to Unit 01.

Misato took Inia's other side "Are you certain she will survive this?"

"I'll be fine," Inia replied, trying to support more of her own weight. "I'm not going to leave Shinji."

"I hope you're right" Misato lowered Inia into the second pilot chair before turning to leave. "Good luck. Asuka already launched, so you can back her up. She was going to try to drive off the main body of the JSSDF. If you can hold them back long enough, we can clear out the ones in HQ enough to make a retreat" She was about to go when she turned around and added, "Shinji, take care of her. And Inia, don't die, or I will kick your ass."

"Yes, ma'am" Inia smiled weakly.

"And grab one of the extended 'battery' packs – the ones based on BETA mini-reactors."

/\ PoC /\

Ryouji lowered his gun as he approached the body of Gendo Ikari. He was pretty certain the commander was dead, but he was a tricky bastard, so it payed to make sure.

Kaji was just reaching down when he heard a noise above him. He glanced up to see the Angel ripping its arm off of the spear that had been pinning it to the wall for millennia.

"Oh, shit!" He dived to the side just as the huge hand slammed into the spit of land, knocking everything on it flying.

The faceless giant stood up and stared at the rubble of the room. When Ryouji did not resurface from the LCL, it turned its 'face' up towards the ceiling and the sky beyond.

/\ PoC /\

Shinji had just reached the surface when the ground began to shake. His Evangelion dropped down to one knee for stability, and several buildings, already damaged in the fighting, collapsed.

The ground under a platoon of soldiers cracked open, and Lilith, the second Angel, burst forth like some demon hatching from an egg.

"Why now?" Why did did an Angel have to attack now, while they were dealing with human problems? And how did it get inside the geofront in the first place? Shinji was having a hard time processing what was happening, or why.

Woodenly, Shinji grabbed a pallet rifle and opened fire. He was just reacting, without any human comprehension. He was an automaton.

/\ PoC /\

Asuka turned around. For the moment, she was alone. The JSSDF were hot footing it away and the Berkut TSF, being far more mobile, was savaging their retreat.

The ground began to shake - something was happening on the other side of Tokyo-3 - but before she could investigate motion above her caught her eye. She raised her AT field just in time to deflect a spear. She whipped around as a white deformed almost-Evangelion landed where she had been, and others dropped down around her. Each was armed with a spear of some sort.

"So you want to play?" She lunged forward, her progressive knife taking the head off of the first one so fast that the startled creature had no time to react.

The mass production Evangelions fought hard. They had superior numbers, and their weapons were longer. But they weren't Auka. They lacked the will to fight, the will to win that Asuka had. They were the enemy, and she would destroy them.

Asuka grabbed the spear from a dead unit and rammed it into the back of the head of another whose clumsy attack she side stepped.

Her AT field deflected another attack.

"Oh, shit!" One of the white monstrosities opened up a shark like jaw and bit through her power cord, _'I knew I should have grabbed one of the extended power packs like Misato said.'_

Asuka pushed herself faster, killing a third and fourth, one after another. The five remaining units stumbled over themselves trying to get clear, But Asuka dropped them one after another. They didn't have AT fields, making them nothing more than glorified JET-ALONE units. They were no match for her Evangelion. The true Evangelion.

She was down to the last enemy, and her timer was ticking down the last 20 seconds when the white monster's spear twisted and reshaped itself into a duplicate of the spear of Longinus.

"What?" It stabbed forward, piercing Asuka's AT field and going right into Unit 02's eye. "Yeaah!" Asuka lunged at the last enemy, only to be grabbed from behind – the other mass production units were reforming, reaching for her Eva.

Realization dawned, _'they have cores, like Angels.'_

/\ PoC /\

Shinji fired and circled, fired and circled. The Angel kept trying to reach out to him. So far it hadn't attacked with any weapon but was trying to grapple Unit 01, which to Shinji's mind meant that he had to avoid contact at all costs.

He glanced over at Inia. She was semi-conscious at best, moaning in pain as the Eva jarred her wound. He had messed up so badly with her. Maybe even worse than with Asuka. He didn't know what to do, but he couldn't let her get hurt more. Asuka was right. He was in love with her.

He moved to better spot and extended his AT field, meshing it with the Angel's, and opened fire. Truck sized bullets ripped chunks off of the Angel. As the the Evangelion shook from the recoil, Inia gave a gasp.

Shinji glanced over to see Inia lolling unconscious in her seat. He couldn't tell if she was still breathing. He looked back at his enemy right away, but the moment's inattention cost him. As he turned back to his opponent, it's finger tips brushed Unit 01, and the world dissolved.

/\ PoC /\

Unit 02 ran out of power as all the mass production units encircled it and began to rip at it with their teeth and clawed hands,

Asuka screamed in pain.

With her last conscious thought, she grabbed the handled labeled 'self destruct' and slid it to the side, flipping the three switches that were revealed underneath.

"See you in hell!"

* * *

/\

Ok, guys. The story is almost done, and I am embarrassed to admit that I have hit a wall. What a place to get writers block, huh?

I am not certain how exactly to finish this story off


	12. Chapter 12

Shinji opened his eyes with a start as something pounced on him. "Wake up, Baka! We're going to be late to school!" Shinji flinched away as Asuka shook him awake with the gentleness of a cat shaking a mouse.

"Wha... where?"

"Get up! School! Now!"

"Um, can I have some privacy" Shinji clutched the school uniform that Asuka had thrown at him.

"Oh, right." The door slammed. Shinji took a moment to look around. It was his bedroom, piled with his usual junk – school books, laptop, cello - and a couple of posters of far away places that he wouldn't mind visiting some day. It was all very familiar.

Shinji got dressed and staggered out of the room to the bathroom and then to the kitchen, where Asuka was chatting with his mother (his father was obscured by a newspaper, as usual).

"Here, dear, take some toast – you overslept again."

"Come on!" Asuka grabbed his free hand and pulled as soon as Shinji's fingers had made contact with the toast.

"Don't forget your book bag!" Yui called out. As the door slammed behind the teens, she turned to Gendo, "Shinji is lucky to have a friend like Asuka."

Shinji almost flew as Asuka propelled him down the stairs. "Come on, we have a math test first period!" She danced around him in her exuberance.

Shinji rolled his eyes "We're not going to be late. You're always like this on test days."

As they walked and chatted, saying hello to Kensuke as they passed the otaku, everything felt very normal, but at the same time, it wasn't right.

They got to class in time, and after Hikari instructed them in the daily ritual of 'Stand. Bow. Sit', the teacher introduced them to a new exchange student who would be joining their class – a blond Russian girl, by the name of Ina Shestina.

It was at this point that the sense of unreality deepened into a wide gulf. Shinji knew that that wasn't Inia. Not his Inia. "No!" He stood up, drawing surprised looks from his classmates. "This is not right. This is not real!" He struggled to the one thing that he trusted to be real – his telepathic connection with Inia. He wasn't certain what he was doing, but the classroom began to swim and dissolve before his eyes.

/\ PoC /\

"Why do you pilot?" the voice resounded in the empty plain.

Shinji looked around. He wasn't certain where he was. Everything was white. "To protect the others."

"What others?"

"People." This was what he had learned from Inia. First from her example, and then from the realization that he would do anything to keep her safe.

"Do you wish to join with people?"

"Yes," Shinji replied, before pausing and adding, "with Inia."

"You can become one with everybody. There will be no more pain, just the joy of being."

Shinji frowned, "the joy of being ? That doesn't sounds like... anything. Where would everybody else be? How would we interact?"

"You would be one," reiterated the voice.

"That's bull. If we are all melded together, then nothing changes. If all you feel is this joy of being, then that's the same as not feeling anything at all." Shinji was an expert on not feeling anything. That is how he had spent nine and a half years, before Inia. "I want to be with Inia, but in a normal fashion, as two regular people."

/\ PoC /\

Shinji opened his eyes. He was laying on a beach, with an ocean of LCL softly lapping at the shore.

The first thing that struck him was the silence – here was no city sounds of automobiles rushing by, nor even the susurration of the ever present cicadas. The next was the giant stone statues of Asuka jutting out of the ocean like misshapen cliff faces.

He got up and started walking down the beach. He didn't feel too bad, given what he had gone through. Actually, he didn't feel much of anything – he felt disconnected. The reddish light, the empty beach, the unnatural landscape. It all felt so alien.

"Hello? Is there anybody here?" He called out, but there was no response. Not even an echo.

He jogged up to a rise in the beach. From there, he saw something (someone?) in the distance. He slid down the dune and jogged over.

It was Inia.

He crouched down over her bandaged form and placed a hand over her face – she was breathing!

"Inia?" there was no response.

It was silent. Not just silent, but there was no sensation, no feeling from anything. He tried reaching to to Inia telepathically, but he couldn't feel anything there either.

He grabbed Inia and started shaking her. "This is wrong! This isn't the way its supposed to be!"

Finally, there was a slight contact, a foreign sensation in his mind.

One word.

"Why?"

"Because this is not the world I as fighting for. I want the normal world." Shinji began to sob, "I want normal."

/\ PoC /\

Shinji slowly struggled to consciousness. He was laying in a hospital bed, and on his left was a bank of machinery that was attached to his arm and chest by a series of thin wires. It beeped periodically. On his right was Inia, half curled up on the hospital bed, an abandoned chair with a magazine on it behind her.

He gently reached down to stroke her hair, so as not to wake her up. He wasn't certain how long she had been sitting with him, but it must have been a while, as her injury was healed.

She looked up muzzily, "welcome back, Shinji."

Shinji smiled down at the girl. "Where am I? What happened?"

"You managed to defeat the last angel. The UN forces came and took over. Everything has become normal."

Shinji nodded. He wasn't certain if this was the real world or not, but it was normal. And that was good enough.

"I'm glad you're here." He reached out to Inia.

END

* * *

Yes, it is a Gainex ending

But it's Evangelion, so what do you expect?

]:)


End file.
